


Time out of Joint (Extended Remix)

by Politzania, tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, POV Alternating, Panic Attacks, Soulmates, Time Travel, Tony Stark Has Issues, Using your brain, no powers because Time Travel, not your brawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-04-24 18:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14360739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Politzania/pseuds/Politzania, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: The Avengers have been pulled from their timelines just prior to becoming heroes and  it's brains over brawn for this particular adventure. Regardless of the timeline, it seems they don't always get along so well.  Until they do.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Time Out of Joint](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13191291) by [Politzania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Politzania/pseuds/Politzania). 



> This story is a Civil War fix it and written before Avengers: Infinity War was released (altho the film will have been released by the time the last chapter is published, so there are no spoilers for IW)

Bucky awoke to find himself on a hard, cold, floor, without even the meager comfort of damp straw and gunny sacks. He was alone -- as best he could tell in the pitch black dark -- not in the cell he’d shared with a half-dozen other prisoners for the better part of the past couple months. His entire body ached, and his head throbbed worse than any hangover. He’d been sick, sure, but this felt so much worse. 

As he picked up the bits and pieces of his memory, Bucky realized he was lucky to be anywhere at all. The last thing he remembered was a guard approaching him near the end of yet another grueling shift. Bucky had just about passed out on his feet after another coughing fit left him woozy and short of breath. The guard gestured sharply for him to step away from the machine, and pointed toward the door. Even behind the mask and goggles, there was something different about the man, he wasn’t a typical Nazi goon. Bucky stepped out onto the aisleway of the factory floor, and the guard fell in behind him. 

With hard pokes to Bucky’s shoulder, the guard directed him to a narrow passageway between two buildings. His stomach dropped at the thought of what he might be forced to do next. He was instructed to stop and turn around, and found a gun pointed right at him. Bucky waited for the man to say something, anything. But he just smiled disconcertingly and pulled the trigger.

 _This is it, this is the end._ Bucky barely had time for the thought before the whole world just went away, disappeared into blackness. 

Bucky startled at the memory, then patted his chest almost reflexively. While he hurt all over, he didn’t feel anything like the pain of a bullet wound. So what the hell had happened? But before he could give it much thought, a wheezing rattle of breath from somewhere off to his left got his attention. 

Bucky stiffened -- the sound was eerily familiar. But it couldn’t be ... that punk was a goddamned ocean away. He had to be hallucinating, a side effect of being so sick. But Bucky held his own breath in sympathy, even as the wheeze rose in pitch. Whoever it was, he had to try to help. 

“Hey,” he called out in an urgent whisper, “calm down a little and sit up straight. Shoulders back, like you just got called to attention.” 

“Buck? Is that you?” Jesus, Mary and Joseph -- it _was_ Steve. Hell if he knew how, but that was definitely him. Maybe he was hallucinating, or dreaming. Bucky pinched himself, but nothing happened. “Bucky? What’s going on?” Steve’s voice was going thready, and that was never a good sign. 

“Stay put, pal. I’m on my way.” Even if all this was nothing but a figment of Bucky’s imagination, just sitting here wasn’t doing him any good. Making his best guess as to where the maybe-not-even-real Steve was located, Bucky crawled in that direction. With his head still spinning and feeling sick to his stomach, it seemed the easier course. Besides, he didn’t quite trust himself to get to his feet and walk when he couldn’t see a damned thing. 

Feeling his way across the damp stone floor, Bucky was morbidly certain this wasn’t anywhere he belonged. Not the Nazi prison camp or even one of the rumored worse places. Maybe the guard had really shot him. He was dead, and this was what came next. It didn’t seem like either Heaven or Hell but he was never much of a believer to start with. Not like Steve. 

But he remembered learning about Purgatory in Sunday School: a halfway point between Heaven and Hell for unbelievers or those souls that had no home. A place where nothing happened, away from the eyes of God, but not yet in the Devil’s hand. This place… this place could be Purgatory. Bucky’s blood ran cold. If Steve was here, did that mean he was dead, too? His outstretched hand bumped into something warm, something that moved. 

“Bucky!” Steve grabbed his hand. “Please tell me that’s you.” 

“Thought I told you to stay out of trouble, punk.” Bucky kept his voice low, not sure what might be waiting out there in the dark for them. 

“What? You’re the one who dragged me out on yet another double-date and got us mugged!” Steve wasn’t nearly as quiet with his response. No sense of self-preservation, but he’d known that about his pal for years. 

“Is that what happened to you?” Bucky tried to keep his voice steady, even as a tear trickled down his cheek. Steve didn’t deserve this, to be taken so soon and end up here. He was a good guy, went to church with his ma every Sunday until she passed, stood up for anyone and everyone who was getting a raw deal. 

“I dunno,” Steve replied slowly. “Can’t quite remember.” He was quiet for a few moments. “I went into the enlistment center. Ended up talking to a doctor. Thought I was gonna get arrested for lying on my application at first, but he said he thought I’d be a good candidate for a new program. Told me to come back the next morning and he’d get me signed up. I was gonna try to find you, but there was this guy...” Steve’s voice trailed off. “Where are we, Buck?” 

God, did he really have to break the news to Steve this way? “What you’re talking about, champ... that happened months ago. I went overseas, fought in a couple of battles, got captured by the Krauts. They were working us to death, but I think ... I think a guard got me first.” 

Steve made a choking sound. “I wasn’t gonna say, ‘cause it sounded crazy. But this guy came out of nowhere, pointed a gun at me. He said, “I already have your friend,” I heard a loud bang, and ... here I am.” 

“I’m so sorry, Steve. You don’t belong here.” It ached to think of Steve dead, more than it hurt to know he’d never go home again. Steve had always had such a tough row to start with, and now he was dead and probably in a pauper’s grave. No one to mourn him. He wiped his eyes on the shoulder of his shirt, trying to keep the grief out of his voice. 

“Well, we did say ‘to the end of the line’, didn’t we?” Bucky could hear Steve’s familiar wry grin in his voice. 

“Yeah, well,” Bucky murmured, “didn’t actually think we’d really die an’ go on to Purgatory.” 

“You think that’s what this is, Buck? Seems awful… boring, for an afterlife. I think we got shafted.” 

A slight shuffling sound caught Bucky’s attention, as did a faint, flickering blue-ish glow off to their left, maybe four or five yards away. He’d have expected any light down here to be reddish, but then again, he supposed blue flames were the hottest. 

Indistinct mumbling was followed by a surly comment: “Oh god, Rhodey. Please don’t shine that in my eyes.” The voice -- a warm, rich tenor -- hardly seemed infernal. 

“You said you hit your head,” a second voice, presumably Rhodey, replied. “Hold still, Tones, an’ let me check your pupils.” 

“I said my head hurt, although in all the chaos, maybe I did.” 

“Thought you were wearing your helmet.” 

“They didn’t give me one.” 

“Hello?” Steve piped up, his curiosity evidently winning out over caution. Bucky groaned; despite the adage that misery loved company, he didn’t know whether there was safety in numbers here or not. 

“Signs of life!” the first voice exclaimed. “So, where are we?” 

“Not sure,” Bucky chipped in. “But my pal and I can see your light. Looks like you’re not too far away, just a couple of yards.” He heard more shuffling, and the light drew closer. “Over this way -- keep coming.” 

The light was too dim to be a flashlight, more of a glow than a beam. But it revealed the two men’s approach. The first looked somehow familiar, with his mustache and goatee, while the other man -- a colored fella -- held the source of light, a palm-sized rectangle glowing on one side. 

“Howdy, neighbor!” It was the man they’d heard speaking before. “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste. Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, at your service.” Tony’s companion sighed heavily. “What, Rhodey -- how much more trouble can I get in at this point?” 

“Stark? As in Howard Stark?” Steve asked. 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yes. Don’t remind me. Thank god I take after my mother.” 

Steve scoffed. “You can’t mean Howard Stark’s your father -- he’s a good ten years younger than you!” 

“Listen, pipsqueak, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but--”

 Before Steve could get his hackles up at the insult, Bucky interrupted. “Hold on. Let’s finish the introductions. Nice to meet you. I’m James Barnes, Bucky to my friends.” Tony had started to hold out his hand, but stopped suddenly. 

Bucky ignored the slight and continued, “I usually clean up a bit better, but the Nazis don’t exactly put their prisoners up in four-star hotels.” He gestured to Steve. “This is Steve Rogers, a friend of mine from back in Brooklyn.” Tony grabbed the light from Rhodey and aimed it at them both in turn. His confused look turned to one of utter disbelief. 

“Uh, yeah, no.” Tony said, backing away and putting his hands up as if to fend them off. “This is one hell of a hallucination. That or the universe has truly decided to fuck with me, because there is no way these two guys are who they say they are... right, Rhodey? I mean, one minute, I was in an armored vehicle convoy in Afghanistan, with things going kaboom, and people shooting at me... After a minor blackout, I’m here, in a goddamned cave talking to two--”

Rhodey broke in, “Tones, you weren’t in Afghanistan. You were in Malibu, it’s your birthday. Don’t you remember? Afghanistan was… That was almost a year ago.” Grasping Tony’s shoulder he turned him so they faced each other. “Just how bad did you hit your head?” He took the light back and started looking his friend over. 

Steve glanced over at Bucky, eyebrow raised. Based on Rhodey’s comment, it seemed they were dealing with the same kind of time slip he and Steve had already discussed. They’d worry about why Tony acted like he recognized them later. One problem at a time. 

“Bucky thinks we’re dead and in Purgatory,” Steve blurted out. 

Tony blinked. “Come again?” 

“You said the last thing you remembered, things were exploding around you, right?” Steve explained. “So, maybe some shrapnel got you. Bucky ‘n me, well, we’re pretty sure we got shot.” He turned to Tony’s companion. “How about you -- Rhodey, was it?” 

“Rhodes, Jim Rhodes.” he replied, a thoughtful frown on his face. “I was at Tony’s place in Malibu.” He turned to his friend. “There was a party and you were in your suit and falling down drunk. Things were getting out of hand and you wouldn’t listen to me.” He stopped, and took a deep breath. “I was about to go put on your other suit when someone came up behind me, poked me in the back with something hard and cold...” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Yeah, it coulda happened that way.” 

“Let me get this straight.” Tony said, disbelief clear in his voice, “You’re saying we’re hanging out in the lobby of the afterlife, waiting for our number to be called? C’mon! Rhodey, you can’t believe... I mean, souls are a scientific improbability, with no empirical proof discovered so far. I’m not saying no one has a soul, but the whole higher order, intelligent design, heaven or hell thing? Endothermically unlikely, at best!” 

“But what about the time discrepancies?” Bucky asked. “Rhodes, you said that what Tony described happened over a year ago. Well, the last thing Steve remembers I know for a fact happened months before what sent me here.” 

“And what exactly ‘sent you here’, if I may be so bold to ask?” Tony said, the bewildered look suddenly replaced by something sharper, as if he were furiously calculating something in his head. 

“Like I said, I was in a German prison camp, getting worked to death, and a guard decided to do me in a little sooner. Steve here was trying to enlist again, but this time he talked to a doctor--” 

“Doctor Erskine?” Tony interrupted. He’d started pacing, probably not the smartest thing to do when they could barely see three feet in front of their faces, but he seemed the type to have to constantly be in motion. 

“Yeah,” Steve answered slowly, “he said I might qualify for a special program.” 

“Project Rebirth, right? But what happened? You obviously,” Tony gestured animatedly up and down at Steve’s form, “didn’t make it to the lab or you wouldn’t still look like this.” 

“What lab?” Steve asked. “Bucky told you. I got shot on the way home.” 

Tony stopped suddenly, took the light out of Rhodey’s hand again, and proceeded to inspect both Steve and Bucky closely. Feeling extremely self-conscious, Bucky struggled to not blush, especially when Tony snagged his dog tags out from inside his shirt and peered at them. He was an attractive man, at least physically, and it pained Bucky to be looking (and smelling) the way he did. 

“Fuck,” Tony said, turning to Rhodes. “It really is them.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * slight bit toward the end where a teenage (14, maybe) Natasha is trying to use her training to seduce Sam. It's awkward and a little uncomfortable for Sam, but nothing actually happens. She's barely out of the Red Room in this timeline. As always, contact me (tisfan) or (polizwrites) on tumblr for more details. You know your own limits better than we do.

“On your left,” the big guy said. Sam had seen him come onto the mall’s ridiculously large sidewalk about ten minutes ago, and he was already lapping?

The big guy sped by, legs moving so quick that Sam shook his head, trying to clear vision that was obviously blurry. Sam had seen Olympic athletes that moved at that speed, but only for short sprints. Probably. It was still early, the sun just barely pinking the sky. Sam clipped around the corner, checked his heart rate. Yeah, he was still good, not hallucinating or anything.

He shook his head and kept going. Obviously Sam was under-caffeinated.

“On your left.”

_Really?_

As Sam watched him run by agan, he noticed that, while the man’s legs moved ridiculously fast, his pace actually looked like a jog; that he wasn’t running flat out, moving -- Sam started doing math in his head, which wasn’t as hard for him anymore, years of working with the EXO-7  had given Sam a head for numbers -- at around thirty miles an hour was his jogging speed?

The fuck, even?

That guy could not _possibly_ be human. _Oh, don’t be an idiot, Wilson,_ he told himself _. You know who the man is, just use your head for one goddamn second._

“On your left.”

“Uh-huh, on my left. Got it.”

He knew it was stupid, he fucking knew it, but it was hard, when Captain goddamn America lapped him for like the seventh time, not to pick up his pace, push himself to his limits. His heart pounded in his chest, his breath whistled in his lungs, and his legs were doing that wobbly, made of jello thing.

“Don't say it! Don't you say it!” He gritted his teeth, managed to eke out a little more speed.

“On your left!”

Sam swore he could see the guy smirking as he passed Sam with ease.

“Come on!”

Sam managed another hundred feet or so at top speed, and Sam was no slacker, no way, he was fit, he was in shape, he was…

Fucking done. He staggered a few steps, panting for air. _Asshole_. Sam took a gulp of water from his bottle, straightened up, and finished his lap.

Sam was about to throw himself to the ground under his favorite tree when a fucking cop stepped out from behind a cluster of thin dogwoods. “Can I see some identification, sir?”

“What?” Sam spread his hands easily. His mama had taught him, practically from birth, police protocol. Kept his hands away from anything that might possibly have been a weapon. His heart, already beating too fast from trying to outrace Captain Goddamn America, gave a stuttered lurch and then gave up the ghost. Too much damn adrenalin already.

“Can you come with me, sir?” The cop had his gun out, and while it was pointed at the ground, currently, the cop had his finger on the trigger. Sam sighed. He was one wrong word from being the next victim of scared white boy syndrome.

“It’s all good, officer,” Sam said in his ‘reasoning with vets’ tone. “I can get my ID. It’s in my back pocket. It is okay if I reach for it, sir?”

“Slow,” the cop said, and his gun was shaking.

 _Do I really look so damn scary?_ Sam wanted to ask, but he was only about thirty percent certain that the cop was going to shoot him. If he snarked off, that percentage was going to go up in leaps and bounds and Sam’s mama was going to kill him if Sam managed to get himself shot.

“All right,” Sam said. “I’m gonna hold my water bottle right here, out in front of me, and then reach for my wallet with my other hand, okay?”

Sam waited until the cop nodded, started to move his hand down to his pocket.

The gun came up until Sam was looking right down the barrel.

_Oh, fuck me, could this day get worse?_

The cop’s finger squeezed the trigger.

_Yep._

***

When Sam woke up on a hard, cold floor, he assumed he was in a jail cell and was honestly surprised to be waking up anywhere. It took him a moment to register that the floor was both rough and damp, which wasn’t his experience with any jail, and that there was someone resting their head on Sam’s thigh.

A very warm someone.

Sam opened his eyes and looked down. He couldn’t see well, dug his phone out of his pocket. There wasn’t much battery left, but there was enough to get a look around. The light from his phone didn’t go far, just enough to see a lot of nothing, no jail cell, no bars, no benches. There was rock and there was Sam and there was… a dude.

Sam was still wearing his running clothes, and he’d have been a lot colder in those shorts except that there was a gangly white boy draped over him, one arm thrown over Sam’s thighs, and his head in the curve of Sam’s hip.

He had thick, curly hair and his mouth was open and he was drooling onto Sam’s sweatshirt.

Ew.

Sam squirmed out from under the guy. “Dude-- the fuck are you?”

The man made a grumbly sort of noise. “Five more minutes.”

“This ain’t high school,” Sam said, kicking out until his legs were free. “Don’t care if you sleep, but not _on me_.”

The guy pushed up, _finally_ , blinking owlishly. He was wearing an ugly purple shirt, torn open in the front with several buttons popped off, showing off a fairly unimpressive chest covered with dark curls.

“Of course it’s not high school, it’s a college campus and--” the man trailed off looking around uncertainty. He recovered a pair of wire-frame spectacles from his breast pocket (with one broken lens) and put them on. “This is not… where are we?”

“You tell me, man,” Sam said. “I was minding my own business and got arrested for the crime of running while black. I mean, that’s some Trayvon Martin shit right there, guy can’t even go for a jog around the reflecting pool where the damn statue of Abraham damn Lincoln is without getting harrassed because of the color of his damn skin?”

“Who?”

Sam just looked at him. Just like a white boy to not know who Trayvon Martin was.

“What happened?” Purple shirt was gingerly feeling the back of his head. “There were protesters all over campus. I think one of them attacked me.”

That was news. “What campus?” There were a ton of colleges in and around the DC area, so that might give him some idea of where they were.

“Culver University,” the man said, and Sam found himself squinting in the light from his phone’s lock screen. The man’s face was vaguely familiar. The phone beeped urgently -- low battery, not even enough to tell the time. Damn. No signal, either; it was fully charged when he’d gone running, so it’d been a while. Or it had been constantly pinging for a cell signal, that tended to drain his battery pretty bad. He didn’t acknowledge the way his stomach sank in dismay as the light died. He tucked the dead phone back in his pocket.

“That’s a ways south of DC,” Sam said. Seemed a long way to drag one frumpy looking dude. “You a professor?” He’d seemed a little too old to be a student.

“Yeah, I… Doctor Bruce Banner,” he said, extending a hand.

That name was vaguely familiar, too. It niggled a bit at the back of Sam’s mind, along with sending a frisson of fear down his spine. “Sam Wilson,” he gave his own name.

“Where are we?” Banner sat all the way up, squinting around. There was a dim glow, now that his eyes adjusted to the lack of his cell phone’s glare.

No jail cell that Sam had ever seen looked like that. More like a dungeon, although there wasn’t a door, just a dark tunnel that lead off who even knew where. There wasn’t much natural light, either. Sam patted around, trying to figure out where it was coming from and ended up with a few smudges of greenish, glowing slime on his fingers. “Man, what th’ hell is this?”

Banner grabbed Sam’s wrist, looked at it. In that eerie green glow, Sam suddenly remembered why it was that Banner’s name was familiar. Oh Jesus Christ, this was not how Sam had wanted to be introduced to the damn Avengers. He repressed a start and the urge to jerk his wrist back. _Don’t get the Hulk angry, man._

“Bioluminescent,” the man said. “Looks like algae maybe? Noctiluca scintillans, I’d say, except that’s usually blue and not green. Maybe a mutant variety.” He leaned closer over Sam’s arm and--

“Jesus Christ, dude, do not lick the science!”

“Checking to see if it’s salt water, or brackish, might give us a clue as to where we ended up.”

“What if it’s poisonous?” Because Sam’s mama didn’t raise no idiots, and licking things when you didn’t know what they were seemed like a good way to end up puking your guts out.

“It’s algae, relax,” Banner told him. “The whole world is alive because of algae. Pretty much the bottom of the food chain.”

Sam pondered if it would be a good idea, or a very very bad idea to tell the person capable of flattening Harlem that he was freaking Sam out, just a little bit. “What the hell were you doing in Virginia anyway, don’t you live up in New York these days?”

“What? No--” Banner might have been going to say more but they were interrupted by an outraged yell.

A woman’s voice, muffled, angry, followed by a man’s. The sound of blows.

Sam was on his feet before he even thought about what he was doing.

“What are you doing?” Banner gaped at him.

“Can’t just sit here, man,” Sam said, which was both true and a damn shame. The way his heart was already racing, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He’d… missed that. Not quite enough to sign up for another military tour, but, a little.

“Are you stupid?” Banner asked, but despite that, he was also getting to his feet. He tore a section of his shirt off and wiped up the remains of what algae he could find, wrapping it around his forearm to give them a little bit of light. Smart. Sam should have remembered that; Banner was a very smart man, when he wasn’t big, green, and smashie.

The tunnels -- and they were tunnels, carved from rock like a mine in an old movie -- were narrow, low ceiling, claustrophobic. Sam had sudden doubts about the wisdom of thundering into any sort of _situation_ with the Hulk in tow, but there wasn’t shit he could do about it now. His momma was always saying that Sam leaped, then looked, and that probably hadn’t changed any.

Obviously not, since he was running straight toward trouble with the goddamn Hulk at his back.

There were a lot of things that Sam might have been expecting, if he’d bothered to think long enough to be expecting anything, but a teenage girl with her arm around the throat of a guy who wasn’t much older than she was, riding him like he was a hobby horse, wasn’t it. As he watched, the boy spun around, slammed back-first into the wall. The girl gasped, coughed and her hold loosened.

The boy ducked, rolled, came up not far from Sam, and pulled a damn knife out from under his shirt. “Stay back,” the kid said. “I ain’t kidding, I will cut you.” He appeared unsurprised to see Sam or Bruce, but put his back to the opposite wall.

“Woah, dude, not cool,” Sam said, looking at the girl, a tangle of red hair hiding her face. “Didn’t your mama teach you not to hit girls?”

“One, my mom’s dead,” the boy said, shoving a handful of dirty blond hair back from his forehead with one hand. “Two, she _bit me_ first.”

“He is follow me,” the girl said, her accent thick, the English practically drowning in a full-tilt diva Russian commie voice. “I am not knowing where we are. Man shoot me, from behind. Must be this man.”

 _Man_ , Sam scoffed. The kid might be eighteen, nineteen, tops.. “You’re shot?” Sam repeated. “Let me see.”

“ _I_ didn’t shoot anyone,” the boy said. “The cops were after me, man.”

Sam ignored the boy, although there was a spot in the middle of his shoulder blades that itched, putting his back to someone wielding a blade. “Hey, hey, are you hurt? My name’s Sam, and I’m a medic. Where were you shot? Let me see.” Up closer, the girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen. She was filthy, like she’d been crawling on her belly in the mud. “I ain’t seeing any blood here.”

“I am Natalia.” She turned, yanking her shirt up to show him a patch of cleaner, pale skin. “He put gun right against my rib, here.” She pointed, moving her arm which revealed things Sam was better off not knowing, namely that she wasn’t bodyshy, nor was she wearing a bra under that shirt. He studiously ignored the sideswell of her breast, barely covered by her hand, focusing instead on where she said the gun had been aimed. “I hear shot, but does not hurt?”

Sam prodded her side lightly. “You don’t look injured. There’s no blood, no entry wound.” He leaned closer, touching a mark on her skin. “This looks… more like a burn than anything. Bring me that light, would you, Dr. Banner?”

Even with more light, Sam couldn’t see well enough, the bioluminescents cast weird shadows and the greenish glow discolored as much as it illuminated.

“There’s more light thataway,” the boy said, suddenly, jerking his chin down the tunnel, past where they had come. “Saw it when I was explorin’, before this little bitch attacked me!”

The girl snarled. “Do not call me that!”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Sam growled. “Let’s assume we’re all on the same side for the time being, can we do that? For like five minutes?”

“I am _not_ on her side,” the boy declared, moving further away. “And I ain’t on your side either.” He brandished the knife, still baring his teeth.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m gettin’ that, kid,” Sam said.

“I’m not a kid, asshole. Name’s Clint.”

“Fine, stay here, _Clint_ , if it makes you happier,” Sam responded, stressing the kid’s name. “I want to get a better look at that mark. Let’s see if we can’t find that light?” He turned, offered the girl his hand. “You coming?”

Natalia slid her hand into his, pressing close up. “You will take care of me?”

“Do my best.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I sure as hell wouldn’t go off anywhere with that crazy bitch,” Clint said, stretching his neck and rolling his shoulders. Bruce had given Sam and Natalia part of their impromptu light source -- such as it was -- before they left. “Stab you in the back as soon as look at you.”

“Sounds like you two have some history.” Bruce responded mildly. He recognized a fellow survivor, and defusing tense situations was something he had experience with.

“Hell, no -- never saw her before in my life! I was just looking around, trying to find a way out of here when she jumped me.”

“Looking around?”

“Yeah, I had a lighter. Musta gotten knocked outta my hand when she tackled me.” Bruce perked up at that news. With only half of the algae left, and drying out at that, it wouldn’t be long before they’d be left in the dark.

“How about we go look for it? Do you remember where you were?”

Bruce followed Clint back down a side passage, holding their light close to the ground and sweeping back and forth. A glint of silver caught their eye. Clint scooped it up and flicked the striker wheel; the bright yellow flame making them both blink. “That’s more like it.” With a better light source, they could evaluate their surroundings more effectively.

“So, what kind of a doctor are you?” Clint asked. “Medical? A shrink?”

“Biochemistry, actually.”

“What about that Sam guy?” Clint tensed back up as he asked the question; he and Sam had definitely gotten off on the wrong foot, Bruce thought.

“No idea. He’s a stranger to me.” But Sam had acted as if he knew him; maybe from reading one of his papers? He didn’t seem the type for scholarly journals, but Bruce knew better than to judge a book by its cover.

“Doctor Banner? Clint? Where’d you go?”

“Speak of the devil,” Clint snorted. Following Sam’s voice, they retraced their steps.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a lighter on you?” Sam asked accusingly, as soon as he spotted the flickering light.

Clint shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

Sam glared at him. “Anyways, I got some good news, and some bad news.” The girl, Natalia, was plastered to Sam’s side and looking up at him with adoring eyes. “I found an exit, but we can’t get to it.”

They followed Sam back towards where Clint had said he saw some light, pushing through a couple of tight spaces and scrambling up a rockfall. They emerged into a large chamber with a hole in the ceiling, sunlight streaming through, albeit at an angle.  He guessed the sun wasn’t far from setting. 

“That’s gotta be, what, a hundred feet overhead?”

“Hundred and twenty-eight feet, give or take a few inches.” Clint corrected. At their astonished stares, he added. “I’m an archer. Calculating distances is my thing. S’what I’m good at. If I had my gear, and a rope, I could get us out of here in ten, fifteen minutes flat. Assuming you guys could climb, that is.”

Natalia suddenly jerked her head around, made a quick “hist” sound and put a finger to her lips. She silently pointed to an opening across from where they’d entered the chamber. Sam stepped in front of her, and Clint flicked his knife out. Bruce stood his ground, waiting to see what would happen next.

“Who died and left you in charge, Stark?” they heard an indignant voice ask. 

“Who’s the smartest guy in the group? Me. Richest guy? Also me. Best looking guy? Well, maybe Barnes, once he gets cleaned up, but still, probably me.” 

A third voice chimed in: “Biggest ego? Also you.” 

“Aw, honey bear, you wound me,” A man, wearing a somewhat disheveled suit and looking backwards as he spoke, emerged into the chamber. 

“Biggest asshole? Also you.” The second man in line had just finished his snarky comment when he stopped in his tracks, having noticed Bruce’s group. The other two in the group nearly ran him over before also freezing in place. The first man whirled around to see what his companions were staring at. 

“Hello,” Bruce said. “We’re... well... kind of lost?” 

“‘Lost’ barely scratches the surface of the situation we seem to have found ourselves in,” the putative leader of the other group replied. Now that Bruce got a good look at him: seeing the mustache and goatee, hearing his voice and the name he’d been addressed by, Bruce found he knew the man. 

“Doctor Stark, Doctor Tony Stark?” he asked in astonishment. 

His surprise was temporarily mirrored on Stark's face before it was replaced by a blinding grin. 

"Not quite used to being addressed by my title, but yes, yes I am." He turned to shoot an amused look at the man he'd been arguing with. "But I believe you have the advantage of me." 

Bruce stepped forward. "Banner. Doctor Bruce Banner - biochem with a side specialty in nuclear physics." He held out his hand, and Stark shook it. 

"Wait a sec, are you the same guy who contacted Stark Industries about the Project Rebirth files?" 

"Yes, that's me." 

Stark's grin got even wider. "Then have I got a treat for you!" He pulled Bruce over towards his companions, and gestured to the one he’d been arguing with. "Meet Steve Rogers. Yes, that Steve Rogers. Pre-serum, Pre-Vita Rays. Just met Erskine for the first time yesterday." 

Bruce looked closely at the slight blond, finding that he very much resembled the photos in the classified documentation, and his clothing fit the period. 

"Didn't your mother tell you it's impolite to stare?" Rogers muttered, and Bruce blushed in embarrassment and apologized before turning back to Stark. 

"This, this isn't possible." he stuttered. 

"'How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?'" Stark quoted, then continued. "Tall, Dark and Handsome over there is trying to convince us that we're dead and in Purgatory, but I can't go for that, no can do." 

"Well, then, I suppose some sort of time travel is involved?" Bruce answered slowly. 

“That’s my working hypothesis. So, who’re the rest of your merry band of miscreants?” 

Remembering his manners, Bruce introduced Sam, Clint and Natalia, while Stark did the same for Colonel Jim Rhodes and Sergeant James Barnes, who Bruce belatedly recognized as well. 

“Now let me get this straight,” Sam said to Stark. “He’s Captain America,” nodding at Rogers, “but before the serum, and you’re Iron Man. Everyone knows Iron Man, big press conference a few years back.” 

“But he’s not, that’s the thing,” Rhodes broke in, after giving Natalia a hard, searching look. “The last bit Tony remembers is from just before he was held hostage in Afghanistan.” 

“Hold on, there Rhodey,” Stark interrupted. “You didn’t say anything about being held hostage! You said I built a flying combat suit and blasted the hell out of some terrorists.” 

“Yeah, well, you built your first suit in order to break out of captivity. And don’t ask about Stane or the arc reactor; I don’t even wanna go there.” Rhodes responded tiredly. 

Sam then gestured to Bruce. “And then we got the Hulk over here.” 

Nonplussed, Bruce replied, “What’s a hulk?” just as Rhodes asked,“You mean he’s _that_ Bruce Banner?” and took a few steps back. 

Sam rubbed at his temples. “Jesus take me now... I suppose that means you two kids gotta be Hawkeye and Black Widow.” Natalia, who had been staring intently at Barnes, flinched, while Clint looked stunned and suspicious. 

“How’d you know my carny name?” Clint asked, eyes narrowing. 

Bruce was definitely starting to believe in the whole time travel theory. It would explain the presence of Barnes and Rogers, and, now that he came to think of it, Stark himself looked a little older than he should. He wasn’t sure what Sam meant by Iron Man or the other code names, but Rhodes had definitely reacted when Sam mentioned the word Hulk... and that didn’t sound good. 

“Y’all are the goddamn _Avengers_ , how even the hell--” Sam was holding the bridge of his nose like he expected his skull to explode. Which wouldn’t really surprise Bruce, there’d been a lot of shocks  on the menu for the day. “And if he’s not even Iron Man yet, that makes time travel--” 

“Time travel is a theoretical impossibility,” Tony Stark complained, interrupting. 

“Didn’t you just say something about ‘eliminating the impossible,’ Sherlock?” Barnes replied. 

“There’s impossible and then there’s _downright ludicrous_ and I’m pretty sure this falls into the later category, BuckyBear,” and then Tony’s eyes widened. “Oh god.” He croaked. “You really are _BuckyBear_ , aren’t you? Jesus, I used to sleep with you-- er, with a stuffed bear, named after you when I was a kid.” 

Colonel Rhodes scoffed. “Yeah, ‘when you were a kid’, Tones. You brought it to goddamn college with you, don’t think I don’t remember that.” He shook his head. “Boy was raised on Captain America and the Howling Commandos stories.” 

“I was more into the action figures, myself.” Bruce mused. “And the comics. I had quite the collection.” 

The girl, who’d been clinging to Sam since they met up with the others, peered around his arm, zeroing in on Barnes. “I know… I know this man. He instruct me in close fighting, sniper shooting, infiltration.” She walked over to him, looking up at him with an odd appraisal. “You are younger now, yes? Not yet the Soldier.” 

“Sorry, sweetheart. You got the soldier and sniper part right, but as for the rest? I ain’t no teacher. Trust me, I’d remember a student like you.” He smiled, but there was a hint of wistfulness in his voice. 

“Wait, wait, wait, if all y’all are goddamn _superheroes_ ,” Sam spluttered, eyes wide. “What the hell am I even doing here, all y’all save the goddamn world from freaking alien invaders. I’m just… just a _pararescue vet._ ” 

“Stop!” Bruce held up both hands. “We’re going around in circles. Let’s… look, I’ve got an idea.” 

Pulling a pen out of his shirt pocket, Bruce said, “Before we go any further, take this and write the current date on the palm of your hand. Once everyone’s done, we’ll compare.” 

They passed the pen around, and he wrote down April 16th, 2005. 

It might have been a little anticlimactic, seeing as time travel was already on the table, but once the pen made it back to his hand, the dates ranged from Steve’s June 14, 1943 to Sam’s, which was April 3, 2014. 

“Okay, okay, I got this, hang on,” Bruce jotted down their dates in order. “Sam, what do you remember after this?” He pointed to his own date of departure. “Since you’re our latest and greatest--” 

“I’m not a superhero,” Sam protested, eyes still wide with shock. 

“Neither are the rest of us, it seems,” Bruce said, reasonably. “We all know who Rogers was supposed to be, and both you and Colonel Rhodes mentioned that Stark built this Iron Man suit.” He took a deep breath. “Do I want to know what happened to merit the nickname ‘Hulk’?” 

“You got big, green and angry. Wiped out a chunk of Harlem,” Wilson replied, and Rhodes nodded in agreement. “Kind of a force of nature, Jekyll and Hyde thing, rumor has it.” 

Bruce felt a little sick at the thought, that his bottled-up rage had somehow been released by his experiment. He wondered how much, if any, control he had over the transformation. “So, what happened to the rest of you?” He looked around at Natalia, Clint, Rhodes and Wilson. “Like, something must have happened, or was getting ready to happen.” 

“I was doing goddamn laps around the reflecting pool and this show-off here,” Wilson flapped his hand in Rogers’ direction, “was lapping me, jogging about thirty-five miles an hour. Couldn’t have been anyone else but Captain America. ‘On your left’, he said. ‘ _On your goddamn left’_.” Barnes snickered. 

“So, maybe Rogers recruited you,” Bruce mused. “You mentioned you were a pararescue vet. Do you fly?” 

Wilson grinned widely. “As a matter of fact...” He went on to describe what sounded to Bruce like a fascinating project; a personal winged combat harness, used for sensitive missions, which everyone knew was doublespeak for _not legally supposed to be there_. 

“Wish I’d thought of that,” Stark grumbled. 

“Our suits are way cooler,” Rhodes assured him. “What about you, kid?” He raised his eyebrow at Clint. 

“Don’t call me ‘kid’, old man,” Clint warned. “I mentioned the archer thing, right? Well, I’ve been working a traveling carnival, doing a trick archery show, and I, uh, got busted. Seemed the local constabulary didn’t care for our little circus. An undercover pig in a black suit picked me up, but before he could take me down to the station, a thug muscled his way in and busted a cap in my ass.” 

Bruce looked questioningly at Wilson. “Does his story match up?” 

Wilson shrugged. “Don’t know much about the Hawk-guy’s background. Could have been someone from SHIELD trying to recruit him, I suppose? The Widow is a mystery as well. Rumor has it she was a Russian operative who was turned and became a SHIELD agent as well.” 

“I am one,” Natalia said, “of twenty-eight candidates of the Red Room. I thought I had graduated. The--” she coughed, looking terrified for a moment “-- the last ceremony. And then I would be a Widow, a valuable Asset for the true motherland. Like the _Soldat_. But man come, he take me aside. Tell me to face the wall, and… _ba bakh_!” 

“He shot you?,” Barnes asked, a note of horror in his voice. She nodded, and he patted her shoulder comfortingly. 

Her face softened, but for only a moment before she pushed his hand away. “Your kindness is nothing but weakness, American. They will break you down and build you up in the image they desire.” She grabbed Barnes’ left hand. “By losing this arm, you will become the Fist of Hydra.” Silence followed her ominous words, with Barnes turning pale around the edges. 

Steve Rogers -- it was still a little difficult to think of him as Captain America -- scowled. “Tell me about these Avengers, then.” The note of command in his voice surprised Bruce; even for a ninety-pound weakling, the guy looked ready to kick ass if someone didn’t answer him.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve did his best to not think about the girl’s words, choosing instead to suspend his disbelief as Wilson launched into an explanation of how Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow, along with someone named Thor -- “As in the God of Thunder, controls the lightning, wears a goddamned cape, Thor” -- fought together against Thor’s evil brother and an army of aliens, tearing up several blocks of Manhattan in the process. 

“And when did you say this happened, again?” he asked. 

“Spring of 2012, about two years ago, my time.” 

“So, did that super-soldier treatment stop me from aging?” Steve replied. “Because I’m pretty sure I’d be in my nineties by then.” Steve still wasn’t sure this wasn’t some colossal hoax, but tried to keep an open mind. 

Wilson looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Well, during the war, you flew a plane full of bombs into the Arctic ice. You were frozen for seventy years,” he quickly explained. 

“Why’d you do a damnfool thing like that, Stevie?” Bucky demanded, and before Steve could gather his thoughts, tell his friend that he hadn’t, that he wouldn’t, Stark spoke up. 

“Because you were gone, Sarge. Cap lost you on a mission in the Alps, when you fell from a Nazi train. Dad said he wasn’t the same afterwards.” It almost sounded as if he felt badly about breaking the news. 

Looking as if he’d gotten punched in the gut, Bucky stammered, “Wait ... so how did I get from there,” he grabbed Natalia’s hand, where she had written ‘Dec 1997’, “to here?” 

“You sleep in cold, like bear in wintertime,” she explained. “You do not age; they wake you when they need you for mission. They did not tell us how old you were.” she grimaced. “They did not tell us many things.” 

This news seemed to be a surprise to all of them, with Wilson and Banner left speechless. “Jesus,” Stark said, “Being a lab rat for Zola must’ve done you some good after all, Barnes.” He took a breath before continuing. “As for you, Rogers, Pops looked for you for the longest time.” Stark didn’t sound happy about it. “He claimed Captain America was the best thing he’d ever created, and proceeded to remind me on a regular basis of how much I didn’t measure up.” Looking Steve up and down with a scathing eye, he finished, “Hard to believe you’re what he started out with.” 

“You’re not making much of a showing yourself at the moment, champ.” Bucky broke in. “If you’re so smart, how come you aren’t coming up with a way to get us out of here?” He gestured to the opening high above them. 

“Not enough information, cupcake.” Stark rolled his eyes. “I don’t know _where_ we are, Furthermore. I don’t know _when_ we are, and that might surprise you, but that’s the more complicated bit. There’s a ton of different theories on the logistics; for example the Quantum Leap concept where you can only travel within your lifespan, since you didn’t exist before or after. Some say the opposite holds, that you can only travel outside your lifespan, since you already exist within the space-time continuum.” 

 “That said, you two,” and Stark pointed impatiently at him and Bucky, “make it damned difficult for either of those theories to be valid, since you died before any of the rest of us were born.” 

“But Rogers wasn’t dead, just frozen in some sort of suspended animation,” Wilson pointed out. “And based on what Natalia just said, something similar happened to Barnes.” 

“Which is kinda blowing my mind at the moment.” Stark paced around. “Okay - let’s table the _where_ and the _when_ for now and look at the _how_ and the _why_. I’d say this is all a hallucination brought on by a head wound from being shot by some traitorous idiot in a hum-drum-vee, but you’re all _too damned annoying._ ” 

“Wait, Tony, you were shot?” Rhodes said, “I thought shrapnel got you.” 

“Weapons demo. The Jericho. Went as planned, sure to sell a million of ‘em,” Stark boasted. “You were there, honeybear. You got in the back humvee, and I was talking to the kids, military kids, you know, bright eyed, bushy-tailed, taking pictures for social media--” 

“Yeah, I remember, trust me, I remember.” Rhodes paused thoughtfully. 

“Then, one of ‘em said ‘Mr. Stark, look!’ Pointed out the window and I looked, like a grade-A idiot. And, I swear, someone shot me in the back of the head.” 

 “So you and I both got shot and Rogers said the same thing,” Rhodes continued. “Barnes, you mentioned a guard did you in... same deal?” Barnes blanched, but then nodded. 

“And here I thought it was just me getting my ass gunned down,” Wilson said dryly. He turned to look at Bruce. 

“I - I don’t remember exactly.” He looked pained. “Could have been, though. There was a riot on campus, and I imagine the police were armed. Maybe I got caught in some crossfire.” 

“But none of us actually have gunshot wounds, right?” Rhodes pressed on. “What if it wasn’t a gun? What if it was some sort of device that transported us all here instead?” 

“Sounds like somethin’ out of Flash Gordon.” Bucky obviously wasn’t convinced, but Steve, well, he wasn’t so sure. The idea of Purgatory hadn’t felt right to him from the start. And now that they were learning each other’s stories and destinies, it seemed too much of a coincidence for them to be brought together. 

“So, who’s our Ming the Merciless, then?” Steve asked. “Could it be that Loki? I mean, you did say he was a demigod.” 

Wilson shrugged in reply. “Don’t know much about the guy, other than he was heading up a buncha ugly mo-fos pouring out of a hole in the sky. Rumor has it that Thor took him back to wherever they came from.”

“Excuse me,” Stark said. Without any more explanation than that, he grabbed the lighter away from Dr. Banner and walked directly over to the far side of the cavern. The lighter was fascinating, a brilliant shade of yellow that even Steve’s eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to, slender and tall and utterly efficient, unlike the ones that Steve was used to, at home, or the one his father had left him, a trench-art piece from The War that had come home along with his dog tags and a picture, but no body. His mother had locked those few pieces in a box and taken them out once a year on the anniversary of his death.

Tony spun the wheel a few times, squatted, examined the wall. Tapped on the stone, his ear pressed against it. “Uh-huh. That would…” He squatted a few times to examine the floor, finally ending up in the far corner, where there was a puddle of water.

He stuck his finger in the water, licked his finger, made a face. “Okay, okay. Yeah.” He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a black case, no bigger than a tin of soup. “Portable reverse osmosis water purification unit,” Stark said. “Along with the Jericho, we have a few of these babies for sale. Usually for desalination, but this one’ll get most water clean and tasty, which we need, because this shit’s got a high lead content in it, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to drink it.”

“You,” Stark snapped his fingers a few times at Wilson. “Come here and get this started, you know military tech, right? This is military, only better. Because I made it. If anyone’s got containers, bottles, whatever, start with rinsing those out and we’ll get as much clean water as possible.”

“See, here’s the thing,” Stark said, talking over protests. He slowed down a little, like he was making a point. “This water has lead in it. That means, probably, there’s industry around. I mean, it could be a natural source, but it’s not very likely, so… where there’s industry, there’s answers. Hey, can you swim?” That was directed at Steve.

“What? Huh? A little,” Steve said. He wasn’t supposed to swim; his lungs weren’t particularly good at holding air and he got muscle cramps really easily. None of this had kept him out of the water, especially when Bucky dared him to get in the river or brave the surf at the shore. He knew how to keep afloat.

“Great. Fantastic, knew you had to be good for something,” Stark said, and Steve’s hands curled into fists. “So, look, can you see there, in the back? There’s a little opening. The rest of us, sorry to say, aren’t going to fit in there. Not even Nikita over there, because I’m afraid she’s got more rack than you do. But anywhere a man can get his shoulders, he can usually get the rest of himself.”

Steve just stared. He could, sort of, see the opening Stark was talking about. “So, you want me to do what, drown?”

“No, no, Hermia -- both little and fierce as you are -- nothing like that. There’s a natural chimney behind this wall; I’m almost positive that it should be big enough for you to climb up inside, once you get back there.”

“Almost positive? You’re not certain.” That was Bucky, always trying to protect him and Steve’s fists just got tighter. It was one thing not to trust Stark -- who honestly, seemed like a bullying asshole in that he pushed people around and didn’t recognize their worth, and almost worse, wasn’t taking pleasure out of it or anything, but just simply not seeing people at all unless they were of value at the moment -- and a whole other ball of wax to _back down_ where Bucky could see him do it.

“Hey, I’m a scientist. Certainty is a big word,” Tony said. “There could, theoretically, be pumice on the other side of this wall that makes it sound hollow without actually _being hollow_. But the water’s pooling here, and the air flow indicates… well, let’s just say, I will bet you five hundred million dollars -- and I do, in fact, have five hundred million to bet -- that there’s an air pocket back here, and that it probably leads up to there.” He pointed at the opening in the ceiling. “So, what we need to do is get someone on the other side to take a look-see. If there’s civilization, there might be rope, or, I don’t know, an iron bar or something.”

“What if he can’t climb it? And that water is cold,” Bucky protested. “He gets sick real easy--”

Steve groaned. There went mother-hen Bucky again. Steve sat down on a rock and took off his shoes and as much of his clothes as he could stand to be without, down to his skivvies. He’d want something dry to put on when he got back. And water weighed down fabric, he wasn’t going to need any more handicaps than he already had.

“Shut up, Buck,” Steve told him. He pointed a finger at Stark. “I’ll take that five million--”

“Five hundred million,” Stark corrected him with an eager gleam in his eyes. “Billionaire. Remember?”

“--whatever. If there’s nothing back there. You’ll give it to me.”

“If there’s nothing back there, lambchop--”

Steve didn’t care about the rest of Stark’s nonsense. He stepped into the water, and his skin erupted into violent gooseflesh. He was shivering even before he was knee high. Christ, Steve hated being cold.

The ground under the water was smooth, polished by centuries of water and movement, probably. He was chest deep when he reached the drop off and his scouting toes told him there was a deep hollow under him. Not much further to the back wall of the pondlet, though.

He took a few deep breaths, as deep as he could manage, and ducked under the water.

It was damn dark under the water. The lighter’s flame and the few remaining strips of glowing moss had barely kept it candle-bright in the cavern, even with the opening at the top. Maybe it was night time wherever they were.

Under the water, there was nothing. Just cold black wetness in all directions. Steve struck out toward the underwater opening. Bashed his fingers against the lip before getting himself oriented.

Tight fit, Steve managed an exasperated thought, tugging himself through the hole. If he got stuck, Christ, he was going to die here in this freezing water, he was going to drown. His chest burned for air, his vision in the black was going spotty. His whole body was trembling out of control and he was going to die here--

He pulled again and slithered through the opening. Got his feet under him and went to launch himself toward what he hoped would be the surface.

“Ow, _fuck_!” The water behind the wall was deep, he just barely got his mouth out of it, but the roof was low, only a few inches before he was scraping his head on it. Great. Tiny little hole, but there was nothing back here, it was just a closet full of water. Steve wiped his eyes clear and realized he could see.

Not much, but there was a light source. He blinked, shifted. Back toward the cavern, there was a narrow gap. Like a chimney. Stark’s damn chimney. It slanted from this side, the opposite way the curved wall in the cavern did. Steep.

But not impossible.

Steve felt around. Bucky, if no one else, would worry. There were no rocks, but when he bumped his head again, Steve broke off a piece of stalactite. He knew Morse Code, back from when Bucky used to bang on the fire escape ladder with a stick to get Steve’s attention. Also, tended to get Mrs. McCready’s attention, and she wasn’t nearly as charmed by Bucky’s beating some sort of _Get Up, Punk_ on the rail, but hey, you couldn’t have everything.

Steve thudded out a brief message. _OK_. He repeated it, just in case, then tucked the bit of broken off rock into his waistband, because he might need it. He took as deep of a breath as his lungs would let him, squared his jaw and started climbing.

 


	5. Chapter 5

A satisfied grin stole across Tony’s face when he deciphered the tapping that came from the other side of the rock wall. He glanced over to Barnes, whose expression of mingled relief and fury only made his eyes look even more striking.

“Smart kid,” Tony drawled. “Making sure we knew he’d made it.” 

“He ain’t no kid,” Barnes spat, eyes narrowing. 

“Right -- he’s a mature, responsible adult, capable of making his own decisions.” Tony responded. “But I’m not so sure you believe that, sunshine. Trust me, when you keep being told you can’t do something -- whether it’s to protect you or control you -- it makes you wanna prove everyone wrong.” 

From Barnes’ slumping shoulders and resigned sigh, he’d obviously been in similar situations before. “Ten pounds of stubborn in a five pound bag,” he muttered, and Rhodey chuckled. 

“Yeah, that sounds real familiar. The stories I could tell you about this guy,” and Rhodey jerked a thumb in Tony’s direction, “would make you wonder how he survived his teens.” 

“Hey,” Wilson interrupted. “I got this filter working. Me ‘n Bruce tested it out already. The thing is, we only got one bottle.” Tony looked over to see him holding the device over the container, while Banner scooped water up in his hands to pour it into the top. 

“Guess that makes us lousy Boy Scouts,” Banner said with a shrug. “So, who’s next?” 

Barnes turned to Natalia, who, Tony noted, had glommed onto him, leaving Wilson high and dry. A fickle girl, or a clever one who’s working the room? Either way, he’d have to keep an eye on her. “Ladies first, or has that gone out of style in the future?” Barnes raised an eyebrow at Tony. 

“Not at all,” Tony replied, making a grand, sweeping gesture. “Drink up, princess Anastasia.” She gave him a withering look, but didn’t hesitate, taking the bottle that Sam proffered. She drank it down, then handed it back. 

Tony glanced at Barnes, who simply smirked and said, “Age before beauty.” 

“Not that I’m disparaging your good looks there, soldier, but weren’t you born in 1917?” 

“Aw, you know my birthday, I’m flattered! But as you just said, we don’t know when we are, so that ain’t a valid reference. And while you’re awfully easy on the eyes yourself, I betcha you got a decade on me.” 

Feeling both flattered and slighted, Tony was just about to quote Dorothy Parker’s famous rejoinder: ‘pearls before swine’ when Rhodey interrupted, “Don’t make me turn this cave around.” He grabbed the bottle and held it out between them. “Now share - and be glad I don’t have two straws handy.” 

They alternated taking drinks until it was empty, then Tony sheepishly handed the bottle back to Wilson, who filled it and passed it over to Rhodey. He held it out to Clint, who made a ‘go ahead’ gesture. “‘M fine.” 

“Suit yourself.” Rhodey downed the water in a single drink, then passed it back to Wilson. He filled the bottle and pressed it on Clint. “You learn in the military to never pass up a chance for a drink or a piss.” Barnes and Rhodey both nodded in agreement. The kid -- and Tony felt he could legitimately call Clint a kid, at least in his own head -- shrugged and emptied the bottle in short order. 

“So now that we’re all spit siblings,” Clint said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “what’s next? Waiting around to see if Rogers shows back up, or do we go explore for ourselves?” Barnes bristled at the use of ‘if’, but for once, held his tongue. 

“Give him time,” Tony said. “Even the best scout needs a few minutes to reconnoiter.”

“Tones, I know you think using military lingo makes you sound badass,” Rhodey said, pinching the bridge of his nose in that way of his. “But you’re embarrassing yourself and giving me a headache.”

Rhodey was worried; deeply worried. Bordering on frightened, which Tony didn’t like at all. He’d seen Rhodey pushing through various stages of panic over the years, and about half of them involved his mother, a bad grade, or a combination of the two. This was like… disappointing the grandmother levels of Rhodey-fear. Which, of course meant that Tony couldn’t acknowledge it at all. 

“Yes, well, you know I’m just unbearably sexy if I start talking math, so, gotta make you look good, am I right, sourpatch?”

“Tones, I was born lookin’ good, you’re the one that needs to practice,” Rhodey said.

Tony was just about to respond to that -- surely there had to be words in the English language that could adequately portray just how very wrong Rhodey was -- when he was hit in the face by a coil of… leather? He took a hasty step back and squinted up at the hole in the ceiling.

“There’s a, er… building full of not-quite-horses up here,” Steve told them, leaning down into the hole. A little too far, really, and Tony had a sudden, gut-churning moment when his brain was doing stupid math, useless math, trajectory and rate of fall and the size of the blood splatter when Rogers hit the ground and wouldn’t that just have made Dad crazy. The trifecta of Tony’s failures to live up to Captain America would be complete by letting Rogers get himself killed off in an alternate timeline that felt a little like a bad dream. “I got one of ‘em that can pull us up. They’re nice.”

They all stared at the slender straps -- buckled together at regular intervals. Tony ran his hand over it, wondering what the tensile strength of the material was; what the breaking strain was. It felt like leather, superficially. Didn’t smell of leather. 

Tony tried not to let his imagination run too wild as he rubbed their makeshift escape route between his thumb and his forefinger, but surely Rogers had been to the zoo and seen llamas and camels and zebras and such. He’d also have grown up with mules in harness pulling carts and wagons around the city. So for him to say they were not-quite horses, well, that didn’t bode well for their situation at all.

He broke from his reverie. “Wilson, you’re up.”

“Why him?” the kid -- Clint -- demanded belligerently. “I toldja I was in the circus. There ain’t a rope I can’t climb.” 

Tony made a quick loop of the not-leather to fit under Wilson’s armpits. “Couple reasons, Freckles,” Tony said, mostly just to hear himself talk, but also because he was in another one of those situations where he needed to prove he was the smartest person in the room. Fuck, it was like being back at MIT where everyone looked at a 15 year old kid like he was crazy. 

“He’s heaviest, so if the rope’s gonna break, better to know that right away,” Tony explained. “Second, trained military. We need guards on both ends. I’m not going to send you or the girl up there and end up with dead kids, that’s not going to happen.” 

Natalia sneered. “The girl, as you say, she has nothing to fear from unknown forces. But you make good point about sending largest one first.” 

“Banner’ll go next,” Tony continued, “so we have a brain and a brawn on either side. Keeps things balanced. In case something happens, it gives the most number of people the greatest chance of survival.”

Barnes turned to Rhodey as Wilson ducked into the loop of harness, adjusting it around his chest. “You good with this plan?” 

He shrugged. “He makes a lot of sense. And I got nothin’ else. Your boy know how to secure a line?” 

“Steve’s reckless when it comes to his own skin,” Barnes admitted, “but he doesn’t take chances when someone else is dependin’ on him.” He handed Wilson the bundle of clothing Rogers had left behind, along with the water bottle. “He’ll need these.” 

Tony hid a smile at Barnes’ thoughtfulness, and tried to push down any other traitorous feelings while he was at it. He was planning to go last; not from any fear of the unknown -- what was the unknown but the next, great adventure -- but to make sure that everyone, everyone, was away and safe (or at least as safe as they could be). And breaking strain. The longer they ran that not-quite leather over the rocks, the more worn it was going to get. The last person out was the biggest risk.

“Hey, Cap!” Wilson called out, “We’re ready down here if you are.” 

Tony did not hold his breath the entire time Wilson was being hauled out of the pit in a series of unsteady jerks. Or, if he did, he’d deny it strenuously. He was certainly not worried about the fate of a man he’d only met an hour ago, and who’d said some extremely unsettling things about Tony’s future adventures, which were already in his own past. 

Wilson made it to the edge of the hole, knocking some dirt and small rocks in their direction before scrambling over the side. Tony could hear some conversation from the top end, but nothing specific, and then the harness came back down.

“Doctor Banner, you’re up?” That was Barnes, courteous and quick. Also, sick. Every time he was given a break, he was hunkered over, hands on his knees to brace himself. Coughed a few times, that wet, phlegmy, deep-chested cough that had him spitting. Tony tried to remember; had he been sick when Cap found him, all those years ago, in a prison camp? That was the story; Dad and Aunt Peggy flying Captain America thirty-some miles inside enemy lines to rescue one Bucky Barnes. Marched back out a few days later with almost four hundred soldiers and the legend was off and running. 

Watching Barnes, however, Tony saw something that got his attention. Even sick and filthy, and desperately hiding how scared he was, Barnes was charming. Sweet, really. With beautiful eyes, a strong jaw and chin. Tony shook his head; flirt later, he told himself fiercely.

“All right, let’s send up the kids next,” Tony said. “Boy Wonder, you’re next.”

Clint didn’t even bother to buckle in, the little show-off. He scrambled up the rope, hand over hand, and was up before Tony could even get his mouth together enough to hiss a few cautionary words at him. 

Tony pointed a finger at the red-headed girl, Natalie, Nat whatever her name was. “You next,” he said. “And don’t give me a heart attack, what’s the matter with you people?”

By the time Tony was headed up, he was just about out of patience. Being alone in the hole was somehow worse than being there with a bunch of other people, but at the same time, oddly liberating as well. For a few moments, he could just be, not having to worry about what other people saw in him, not having to project calm and orderly.

Tony buckled himself in and made the ride to the surface. There was something exceptionally humiliating about being out-of-shape enough to have to scramble over the lip of the hole like an awkward fish trying to flop back into a pond. Rhodey, to give him all due credit, only snickered once before giving Tony a hand up. Then dusted him off, like Rhodey was taking over for Pepper’s mom-of-the-year trophy award. Tony put up with that for all of about six seconds before scowling and straightening out his tie. (like it mattered, here, wherever here was.)

He took a deep breath and looked around, hoping to get his bearings.

There were no bearings to be had. The sky was a blanket of stars that Tony had never seen before, and he’d travelled from one side of the globe to the other, crossed the north pole once just to say he’d done it, and he’d never seen anything like those unfamiliar constellations. It was like the whole world had been tipped over and he lost touch with gravity for a second.

On top of everything, Rogers had neglected to mention that the sky was purple.


	6. Chapter 6

Clint was biding his time and keeping his distance. The circus gig had calibrated his bullshit meter to a precise degree, and this whole situation was sending it off the charts. Steve Rogers was a common enough name (or alias) and while the shrimp looked a little like the ‘before’ panels in the Captain America comics Clint had grown up with, it didn’t necessarily mean anything. And Tony Stark was a M.I.T. whiz kid who made the occasional tabloid appearance, not a smarmy middle-aged guy who couldn’t stop running off at the mouth. 

He had no idea who the rest of these jokers were, much less why that redheaded banshee had practically tried to kill him the moment she’d laid eyes on him. So he’d kept his wits and his knife about him, even if he had slipped and given that Sam character his real name. 

As for the story behind how Clint got here -- well, he might have left a few insignificant details out. Like the circus being cover for a gang of criminals that his older brother had gotten them mixed up with. And the fact that he’d gotten busted while acting as lookout during a bit of B&E. Tired of being treated like a kid -- bossed around and tossed around -- Clint was actually considering going straight and turning state’s evidence, but he’d gotten capped instead. 

He wasn’t sure his situation had improved much. Not only were his companions a little looney toons -- talking about Purgatory and time travel -- but Tony was nearly as much of a prick as the Ringmaster had been, and Sam had been awfully quick to take the crazy redhead’s side. Rhodes had a stick up his ass, and he couldn’t even get a good read on Bucky (really? An adult going by Bucky?) which made him nervous in and of itself. 

Bruce wasn’t so bad, though, and Steve was definitely his kind of guy. Not only did he stand up to Tony’s assholishness, he was both brave and crazy enough to dive into that pool of water to try to find a way out. Speaking of which, Clint swarmed up the buckled-together straps the first chance he had and was back under the open air in no time, ready to bolt. Adios, motherfuckers. 

It only took one deep breath for him to realize something wasn’t right. Clint was a farm boy; he knew what cropland and pasture should look like, sound like, and smell like. This wasn’t quite it. A quick glance at the skies only reinforced his sense of dread. He couldn’t spot a single familiar constellation in the purplish sky, and the full moon was nearly half again too large. 

It shed enough light for Clint to get a good look at the beasts Steve had described as ‘not-quite horses’. The size of a Clydesdale, they looked like a cross between a llama and an elephant. Flat feet and stocky legs to match, they sported long, shaggy fur in multiple colors. The one Steve was using to pull them out of the hole craned its long neck around to look at him. It slowly blinked its large, horizontally-slitted eyes and extended a short, prehensile snout in his direction. 

“He’s gentle as a lamb,” Steve said with a grin, scratching the beast’s flank. “Came right along with me when I stuck my head in the shed to look for something to lower down to you guys.” Clint’s respect for Steve shot through the stratosphere. He wouldn’t have entered a strange building full of bizarre-looking animals while wearing nothing but a pair of wet boxers to save his own brother, much less a bunch of strangers. 

Sam stood nearby, leaning against a tree in an attempt to look casual, but Clint knew better. The man was tense as a bowstring and the tree was covering his back. His eyes kept flicking to the nearby building as if he expected someone to come out of it at any moment. He had to give the guy credit for his situational awareness, at the very least. 

Bruce was like a kid in a candy store; he already had an assortment of plants in one hand, and was examining the harness of the helper beast. “This hardware is hand-forged, and I don’t quite recognize the metal. Could be some sort of brass or bronze, but the patina isn’t right,” he mused. 

“Hold on here,” Clint said, hanging onto the shreds of his sanity. “How are you guys not freaking the fuck out? This,” and he gestured to the beast, “is not a goddamned horse. That is not the moon up there and we sure as hell aren’t in Kansas anymore.” 

Bruce turned to Sam. “Guess we shouldn’t tell him about the eight-legged pony we saw earlier, should we?” Clint honestly couldn’t tell if they were yanking his chain or not. 

“Personally,” Steve said, “I got bigger things to worry about, like getting my sick pal out of a dark, damp hole. At least we can see and breathe up here. There’s a river running behind that building and, assuming someone still has your lighter, we can start a fire. Maybe find something to eat.” He leaned over to offer a hand to the girl, and she impatiently waved it off. 

Steve had a point -- what was the use of losing your shit when there was work to be done? Clint joined Sam in standing lookout, hands itching for his bow and arrow. It didn’t take long before everyone was topside. Steve was right, Bucky did look like death warmed over, now that he got a closer look. He was pale, with dark circles under his eyes and shivered almost uncontrollably, despite the mild weather. 

“Here,” Tony said, handing over his suit jacket. Bucky gave him a suspicious look, but pulled it over his shoulders, mumbling his thanks. Clint had given his jean jacket to Steve, who’d still looked miserably cold, even after getting dressed. Clint had a feeling that once the sun set, they were all going to need a way to stay warm. 

Which led to the next argument: whether to start a fire. Sam and Rhodes were against it, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. “We have no idea who’s out there and what attitude they might take towards us. We have no weapons, and probably no way to communicate.” 

Surprisingly, Tony sided with Steve and Bucky in arguing that a fire would keep away potential predators. “Just look at how thick the walls of that barn are -- whoever built it wants to keep something away from their livestock.” This led to an discussion about what to do if and when someone stopped by to check on said livestock and so forth and so on. 

Clint stayed out of it, sidling over to check out the barn. While it gave him the same not-quite-familiar feeling that the pasture had, he poked around and found what he was looking for. He chewed a few kernels of the grain cautiously; no bitter or acrid taste. Hopefully that meant it was edible for them as well as the llamaphants. He filled a container with the kinda-sorta wheat, and looked around for anything that looked like a spigot. No luck; they must water their beasts at the river that Steve mentioned. So he grabbed an empty container as well and headed back outside. 

“Wondered where you’d gotten to,” Bruce said as Clint rejoined the group Tony must’ve worn the others down, as Rhodey was in the process of building a fire. Steve and Bucky were sitting on a log, hunched over, with the girl plastered close to Bucky’s side. “What do you have there?” 

“Dinner, I hope, assuming I don’t keel over in the next ten or fifteen minutes.” Bruce raised his eyebrows in surprise as Clint explained how he’d gone looking around in the barn. “Figured there would be some sort of animal feed we could do something with. Found some blankets too.” 

“Good thinking, Clint.” Bruce said, clapping him on the back. Clint flinched automatically, and to his surprise, Bruce apologized. “Sorry, I, uh... ” he trailed off and there was a flash of sadness, and something like recognition in his eyes. “Anyways, good work.” 

“Whatcha got there, Boy Wonder?” Tony called from across the clearing. 

“Stuff from the barn -- there’s blankets in there too. We’ll need them once the sun goes down.” 

“I’m on it,” Sam said, heading back to the building.

Clint knew where there were fields and livestock, there were people who farmed and managed the beasts. Therefore there had to be a building nearby, somewhere that the farmers and herders lived. He didn’t really want to get too close, anyone who was using the llamaphants to plow their fields, or ride into battle, or whatever they were doing, was probably no one that Clint wanted to fuck with.

But he’d feel better if he knew which direction they’d probably come from. These city slickers -- with the possible exception of Sam and Rhodes, didn’t seem to have any idea about setting lookout or sleeping in shifts, or any of that stuff that you did, sleeping with one eye open to keep from being woke up unawares with a dark shadow leaning over you--

He shook that thought away without giving it space in his head, a mouthful of words that didn’t mean a thing. He knew better now. Slept with one eye open. And certainly didn’t sleep in unfamiliar places without at least getting the lay of the land.

Not bothering to tell anyone where he was going -- who the fuck cared anyway -- he dropped off his load of goodies, letting someone else figure out the hows and whys of turning not-wheat into porridge that would probably (unfortunately) not be the worst thing Clint had ever eaten.What he needed was a good, tall tree.

Clint scurried over to the woods and picked out a likely candidate. It served the general purpose of a tree, at any rate, even if it was weird and had silvery-blue leaves instead of the normal green pines that Clint was used to. There was a thick, amber sap that leaked from one branch that smelled like freshcut sugar cane and when Clint licked his fingers, tasted like molasses. He reminded himself to grab a few branches before heading back to their camp, it might add some flavor to the mush they were going to be eating.

He look a huge leap, got his fingers into the rough bark and shimmied up the side of the tree like a squirrel. He passed a ring of vine about midway up, dotted with white berries, but he left them alone; parasite vines were usually poisonous, if not to the tree, then to any birds that wanted to make a quick meal. He finally breached the main canopy, which was good, the tree was getting worrisomely thinner and less sturdy as he climbed.

Hooking an arm around the slender trunk, Clint took his time studying the landscape, looking for signs of humanity (or alieninity, whatever worked in this particular situation). Buildings and smoke or roads and vehicles and…

_Oh. Fuck._

This wasn’t one big barn attached to a little farming household, this was a tiny little stable on the very edge of what was a goddamn fucking kingdom.

Behind the castle in the distance rose an enormous, glittering tree, like the center of the fucking universe. The castle itself was gold and copper and sparkling in the last of the moonlight, lights like fireflies flittered around the whole city and airships made traffic like cars, a low buzz of activity that sat heavy in the sky.

_Fuuuuck._

Clint scrambled down the tree again, but stopped just before the last branch, still hidden in the foliage.

“Eh, jus’ leave i’ here,” a voice said, rough and slovenly.

Clint pressed himself against the tree’s bark, keeping his eyes slitted to prevent reflections from giving him away.

“S’posed t’ kill it,” another voice, even darker, like someone had swallowed a bucket of rocks and gargled with glass. Clint wasn’t even certain how he understood them, the accent was so thick it didn’t even sound like English, but it obviously _was_.

“Don’t want no truck wiff that,” the first voice said. “S’ one o’ them frost giants, that is. You saw wha’ he did with m’ sword.” There was a grunt and something hit the ground, a something that made a sad, pitiful noise.

The second voice laughed. “Right proper mess, that was. Bunch of shards instead of steel. Froze it right out of your damn hand, he did.”

Clint let his eyes open just a hair wider. Two… things. Ogres, or orcs -- something utterly alien and grotesque, with thick, long arms and knotted muscles and thatchy hair. He was just as glad he couldn’t see their faces. Behind them was a bag, tied shut.

It was squirming, wriggling.

Something was in there.

Something _alive_.


	7. Chapter 7

Bucky wasn’t sure if he could ever get warm again. He was sitting practically on top of the fire, with both Stark’s jacket and a strange-smelling blanket thrown over him and he still couldn’t stop shivering. Steve had brought him some warm water to drink, and Banner was attempting to make gruel from the grain that Barton had brought from the barn, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep anything down.

Speaking of... “Hey, where’d that Barton kid go?” he asked.

Wilson glanced around from where he was breaking up more dead branches to put on the bonfire. “Good question. Did he make another trip to the barn?”

Rhodes shook his head. “Just got back from there. Didn’t see him.”

The girl, who’d been carefully going through their few supplies, and if Bucky wasn’t mistaken, fashioning a slender shiv from the handle of the bucket, gave him an elegantly, disappointed stare. “And you claim to be a soldier,” she sniffed. “He goes into the forest to scout of course. You have so much to learn, soft one, and you will not enjoy the lessons, I think.”

“Listen, you little chippie,” Bucky responded hotly, “I know plenty about scouting. And I ain’t soft.”

“No, but you’re not at your best, are you, Barnes?” Wilson squatted down to look at him more closely. “I could hear you wheezing from the other side of the fire. Fever and chills?” Bucky nodded, hating to admit weakness.

An angry, wordless shout came rolling through the forest from behind them, and then a crashing sound, as if one of the beasts from the barn had gotten loose and was running amok. Rhodes and Wilson leapt to their feet, each grabbing a large, sturdy branch. The girl swung herself up into the lower branches of a tree, and Banner rose to his feet.

Stark grabbed at Bucky, practically pulling him off his feet. “Come on, sunshine, out of the light, you’ve as good as painted a damn target on yourself.” The guy wasn’t wrong; Bucky wasn’t sure he could even manage a single punch without falling all over himself. And while it felt awful to not be throwing himself into a fight, discretion was the better part of valor for the moment.

They ducked behind a large fallen tree where Steve was already waiting. Barton staggered into the clearing, a squirming sack slung over his shoulder. “Incoming!” he yelled, dropping the sack and whipping out his knife.

Two large man-shaped creatures lumbered into the clearing, bellowing loudly. “Thief! Give it back!” At least that’s what he thought they said; it both did and didn’t sound like English.

“What, so you can kill a little kid?” Barton shouted back. Sure enough, a small figure was wiggling itself out of the sack, a shock of dark hair over pale skin, with some sort of mask half-covering its face.

“Hold on,” Banner interrupted, “No one’s killing anyone around here.”

One of the creatures chuckled evilly as it pulled what looked like an axe from a holster on its back. “You sure ‘bout dat?”

“Sticks and goddamn stones,” Stark was muttering, his hands quick in the grass. “What I wouldn’t give for one measly RPG. Help me.” He found an egg-sized rock, round and smooth. With vicious grace, Stark stood up just long enough to take aim and threw the stone with accuracy, striking one of the creatures in the upper arm.

The thing -- when Bucky could see its face, it was _nothing_ like a man, all gap-mouthed and misshapen nose -- uttered a harsh cry, then drew another weapon, a metal tube of some sort. “Midgardians. Disgustin’ vermin. Th’ AllFather has an infestation in his kingdom. Not for long.”

Steve quickly tore a strip of cloth from his shirt, made a loop and dropped a rock in the middle. He swung it around and let loose, hitting the other creature surprisingly hard in the back of the head. After having read the story of David and Goliath in Sunday School when they were kids, Steve had spent the better part of a month practicing with a makeshift sling. He’d gotten pretty good, even taking out the occasional rat skulking through the alleys of their neighborhood.

The creature had staggered at Steve’s rock, and Rhodes took advantage, smacking at the hand that held the tube, attempting to knock it away before it could be aimed at any of them. The creature backhanded him roughly away, but while its attention was distracted, Wilson darted in with a sturdy branch and tripped it up.

Bucky handed Stark another rock, then scrambled around for more. The ground was surprisingly smooth, hardly any rocks to be found. How was that even possible, God favored rocks and poor people more than anything, his Ma had always said. Bucky shook his head, fever and fear getting the better of him, his thoughts wandering.

The axe-wielding maniac monster -- and how was that a thought that was ever supposed to be in Bucky’s head, he was beginning to think Purgatory was the better deal, here -- chased after Barton, who was backing up toward the tree, the strange kid still clinging to him like a koala. “Tha’ is our bounty! Ye give’t here!”

Barton glanced up, took a few more steps back, and as the hobgoblin creature thundered toward him, Natalia dropped from her perch. She landed as neat as a tick on the monster’s back, her hands moving like lightning. She wrapped a cord around the monster’s thick throat, twisted, and leaned back, planting her knee in the middle of his spine, adding her weight for additional leverage.

“Apparently the need for air is a universal constant,” Stark commented, mildly, eyes focused intently on the battle, even as his hands scanned the ground, still searching for potential projectiles.

The monster struggled, axe falling to the ground, large hands going up to scrabble at its throat. It whirled and slammed itself backward into the tree. The girl made a terrible, wounded noise but kept her grip. Barton snuck in under its guard and slashed at its torso with his knife, despite being hampered by the kid wrapped around one leg.

The other creature struggled back to its feet, fending off the now fire-tipped branches Rhodes and Wilson were wielding. “Hand th’ boy back over,” it demanded, “or we’ll cut you down where you stand.” It brandished the tube in their direction, but just as it took aim, Steve let another rock fly.

It hit the creature’s arm, causing a bright bolt of light to fly high above its mark. It hit the canopy of branches overhead and neatly lopped off a treetop, which started to fall in their direction. Steve was too far away for Bucky to do anything for, but at least he could protect Tony. He flung himself towards the other man, pushing him out of the way. A sharp pain stabbed deep into his leg, making him cry out. Then something heavy connected with the back of his head.

Everything went black.

***

Tony gasped for breath, the wind knocked out of him for a moment. He looked back over his shoulder to see a pile of tree limbs on the ground, presumably with Barnes trapped beneath them.

“Bucky!” Rogers cried, tearing into the leafy pile. Tony’s first instinct was to join him, but they still had a fight to finish, or there’d be no point to the rescue.

One orc-hobgoblin thing was nearly down, thanks to Natalia’s garrote attack, combined with Barton’s hack and slash approach. Banner had gathered the straps and had fashioned a lasso of sorts, but with the girl on the creature’s shoulders, he couldn’t make a throw without tangling her in it as well.

The other creature, now that the tube had been knocked from its hands, was being forced back by Rhodey and Wilson towards the hole they had recently escaped from. Tony scrambled to his feet and added to the distraction by throwing a few more stones. They weren’t doing much damage, but they kept Shrek’s ugly cousin preoccupied just enough.

“What th’...” it exclaimed, stumbling as the earth under its feet shifted. Wilson got in another good poke and then the creature grabbed his branch. Instead of pulling back, Wilson pushed it toward their adversary, throwing it even further off-balance. Tony aimed his last two rocks for its face, and when the ogre covered its face in response, Rhodey ran in and with one last shove, toppled it backward into the pit. Wilson grabbing at his waistband was the only thing keeping Rhodey from going in as well.

Tony turned to see the other creature finally sag to the ground; Banner and Barton quickly wound several loops of the harness around its torso, binding its arms close to its body. Natalia was huddled on the ground, cradling one arm. She looked up through her hair, glancing briefly at each of them, as if she were taking roll. “Where is he? The Soldat... Barnes?”

Rogers was struggling with a splintered branch. “I can reach Bucky’s arm and he’s still got a pulse,” he cried, “come help!” Tony grabbed the other end of the branch while Wilson and Banner waded in as well, carefully shifting tree limbs around.

“This would be a lot easier if you could hulk out, man,” Wilson muttered to Banner, who gave him a skeptical look in return. Barton, after trying out every Boy Scout knot in the book to make sure their assailant-now-captive was secure, was checking on the child.

“Hold on!” Tony shouted, once he’d gotten a good look at the debris covering the much-too-still figure. A bough nearly the size of his thumb had jabbed deeply into Barnes’ thigh, bright red blood trickling out around it. “Don’t move that branch!”

“You gotta be kiddin’,” Rogers shot back, already reaching to pull it out. Tony swatted his hand away.

“You pull that stick out, he’s going to bleed to death right in front of us,” Tony snapped. “It’s the only thing holding his blood inside his body. Without proper surgical tools, he will die in minutes, or lose the leg if he’s only moderately unlucky.”

Wilson nodded in agreement. “We can try to break part of the branch off at least, make it easier to move him, maybe.”

“Hey,” Barton called out. “Anyone got a paperclip or somethin; on them? This kid’s got a muzzle locked around his face!”

“I’m sorry, I think I left all my office supplies in my other pants,” Tony said.

“I got a penknife, will that help?” Rogers asked, fumbling in his pocket before tossing it over to Barton, who grabbed it neatly out of the air.

“What the hell do you carry a penknife around for, fending off marauding squirrels?”

Rogers directed a very angry look in Tony’s direction, “I happen to use it to sharpen my pencils,” he said, crisply, “but it’s come in quite handy in an assortment of circumstances.”

“It’ll do,” Barton snapped, taking the penknife. “Stop bickerin’ like old women and do something useful.” He settled down near the child, talking quietly and calming him, a completely different aspect of his personality coming to the front, like a sponge slowly rising to the surface. Tony blinked. It was a good look on the kid, taking care of someone else.

Tony snorted. He could be useful, too -- didn’t he just save Captain America’s best friend?

Who was going to have, according to Natalia, a pretty rough time of it in his future. Assuming that they could solve the time paradox, get back to their own time, and possibly forget this ever happened? Tony wasn’t sure how that was supposed to work, but the whole idea of going back home and realizing that he now knew things that were going to happen but hadn’t happened yet. Well, that was just freaky.

A non-paradox equation would say that these events had always happened, they would happen again, and by that logic, they would all have to be returned to their times, with awareness of the future and proceeded down that path, regardless of the consequences they knew were coming. Even if they fought those consequences and the events would probably happen anyway.

Or, string theory could apply, where each choice of significance spun off an entirely different universe and that they’d never get home. Which created its own paradox, since Wilson and Rhodey were from futures that hadn’t, and now possibly wouldn’t ever happen.

“I hate magic,” Tony muttered. Because this sure as fuck wasn’t science.

And it was all pointless. Keeping him from thinking about what was important. Barnes was going to die, and that pretty damn soon, whether they removed the branch from his leg or not. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he was going to die because he’d pushed Tony out of the way. A mix of guilt and gratitude welled up inside him, mixing with the possibility that he was actually attracted to the guy. God, this was so fucked up.

“I think I almost got it,” Clint said, deftly angling the tip of the penknife into the lock and making a small, precise movement. The horrific mask that had covered the lower half of the kid’s face came loose. Tony caught a glimpse of wide green eyes as the kid inhaled deeply and screamed.

“Heimdall! Mother!”

There was a subsonic rumble, then a column of multicolored light shot down from the heavens. A moment later, an imposing man, dressed in armor and armed with a sword easily as tall as Rogers was standing where the light had touched down.

“Unhand the Prince of Asgard!” the man commanded, and Clint backed slowly away.

“Take it easy, Galahad,” Tony said, the man’s words pricking at his memory. Keeping a close eye on that pig-sticker he was wielding, he explained, “We’re the ones who rescued the kid from those plug-uglies over there. Isn’t that right, kiddo?” The tiny tot nodded, then ran to their visitor. “And we’ve taken some casualties in the process, with one man down.” Tony gestured to Barnes, just barely visible amid the broken boughs. Wilson was bandaging the wound -- still bleeding too freely -- as best he could around the branch still protruding from Barnes’ leg.

“How badly is your companion injured?” their visitor replied, scooping the child up easily in one arm and dropping his sword to a neutral position.

“Pretty bad,” Wilson said, “and it’s too high for a tourniquet to do any good.”

“Tourniquet? How primitive,” a woman murmured, stepping out from behind the man. Where the hell had she come from? Beautiful, elegant, graceful, with a thick braid of silvering hair that draped over her shoulder, she gave them a brief once over. “Loki, my son, are you well?” The child nodded as she took him from her companion. Looking more closely at their group, her eyes both serene and sad, she seemed to come to a decision. “Ah, I see. Time travelers, and from Midgard. Heimdall, we must bring them back to the palace.”

The next thing Tony knew, the multi-colored light stream had returned, engulfing them all. There was a sense of acceleration, of a shift in gravity, and then they were standing in the middle of a vast, gilded hall.

God, Tony really, really hated magic.


	8. Chapter 8

The first sensation that reached Bucky as he swam back to consciousness was warmth. It reminded him of a day at the beach: the heat of the sand seeping into his body, the rays of the sun beating down on his skin. But there was no humidity, no biting flies or noisy crowds, just a gentle sound like the quiet lapping of the waves on the shore.

He couldn’t move. He panicked for a moment, fearing that the tree that had fallen on him had broken his back, or his neck. But he could feel the warmth down to the tips of his toes, and when he tried again, he could move his fingers just a little bit.

“Are you awake, then, James Barnes?” For a moment, Bucky thought it was his ma. But while the voice was equally warm and maternal, it carried an odd, unfamiliar accent. Besides, his ma had always called him Jaime, unless he was in trouble, then it was first, middle and last names.

Bucky opened his eyes. His head and shoulders were propped up on pillows, and clean, fresh linens were pulled up to his chest. The room was bright and airy, and the woman who had spoken to him was standing at his bedside. She smiled slightly, placing a cool, soft hand on his forehead.

“How do you feel?” She was probably about his mother’s age, and regally beautiful. He blushed a little when he realized he was as fresh and clean as the linens, and naked as a jaybird underneath them to boot.

“Thirsty, ma’am.” He tried to sit up, but hadn’t the strength. She gave him a somewhat stern look, then turned to pick up what Bucky could only call a goblet from a nearby table.

“Drink this.” She put the cup to his lips. Thicker than water and almost too sweet, the pale golden liquid not only relieved his thirst almost immediately, but caused a warmth to spread through his insides as if he’d taken a sip of fine whisky.

“Thank you,” he said, not forgetting his manners. “Where am I?”

“Somewhere safe,” she replied. “Your companions are near. You will see them soon.” She then looked at him more closely. “You have been ill for quite some time, have you not?” Bucky nodded. “And then you suffered a grievous injury while saving one of your companions.”

“If you say so,” he replied, his memories a bit fuzzy. He remember the tree falling towards them, pushing Tony (and when had he become _Tony_?) out of the way, and then nothing more.

“Rest now. We will talk more soon.” Bucky felt his eyelids growing heavy, and the soothing warmth both inside and out lulled him back to sleep.

Bucky next woke to the sound of a familiar wheezing cough. “Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck.” He was sitting next to the bed, and in the light of day, was looking pretty rough as well. His face was even paler than usual, with dark bags under his eyes. He started to speak, but another coughing fit took his breath away.

“Knew I shouldn’ta let you dive into that cold water,” Bucky fumed. Despite being wrapped in what looked to be a warm, plush robe, Steve was still shivering slightly, and his fingernails were tinged blue.

“We’d still be stuck in that hole if I hadn’t,” he replied matter-of-factly. “How’re you feelin’?”

“Weak as a kitten, and my leg hurts like blazes,” he admitted. “What happened? Last I remember is Alice the Goon’s raygun going off and a tree was falling right towards us. Is Tony okay?”

“Yeah, Stark’s fine,” Steve replied, giving him a skeptical, concerned look. “You’re the one that nearly got taken out. There was a branch big around as your thumb stickin’ out of your thigh. You were bleedin’ a lot, Buck. I’m not sure what woulda happened if these folks hadn’t showed up.”

“Who are ‘these folks’, anyways?” Bucky asked, looking around the small, clean room. “The people who owned the barn?”

“I think they own everything around here, pal,” Steve chuckled. “Seems that little kid Barton rescued was a prince. He had some sort of gag locked around his face and once we pried it free, he squalled for his ma. There was a flash of light and then a guy with a sword appeared, ready to fight us all til Stark explained. He and the queen brought us all back here via a bridge of light and got you fixed up.”

“How long have I been out?”

“About a day and a half,” Steve answered soberly. “You were in pretty bad shape.”

“You’re not lookin’ so hot yourself, punk. They gettin’ you fixed up too?”

“Mostly,” Steve replied, but looked a little guilty, somehow. “Eir, one of the healers -- they’re called ‘healers’ here, not doctors or nurses -- she’s concerned about me and you both.”

“You told her about your asthma and dicky heart, right?”

“It’s not either of those,” Steve responded. “She tried to explain, called it ‘soul-sickness’.”

“Soul-sickness?” Bucky repeated. With all this talk of princes, and kingdoms, swords and bridges of light Bucky was wondering if they were in some sort of fairy tale, a medieval world of swords and sorcery.

The woman that Bucky had first seen entered the room. To his surprise, Steve stood and bowed. “Your Majesty.”

She smiled gently. “I am not your queen, Steve Rogers. But I thank you for your courtesy. And how are you feeling, James Barnes?” Bucky thought it slightly odd that she addressed them by their full names, but didn’t dare correct her.

“Better, ma’am,” he replied, hoping that was an acceptable form of address. “Steve told me I was in pretty bad shape when I came in, and I’ve been out for awhile. Thank you for saving me.”

“As you and your companions rescued my son, it seems a fair exchange. Despite my husband’s misgivings, it would be a grievous failure on our part to leave you to your own devices,” she replied. “But I am afraid you and your friend require more than just a healing of your physical wounds.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, a worried look on his face. “Is it the soul-sickness Eir mentioned?”

She sighed. “It is a poor translation, but adequate enough. Travelling through both time and space is stressful for all races, and Midgardians more than most. The displacement did damage to your,” and she paused, as if reaching for a word, “Inner being? Soul? Animating principle? I’m afraid your language doesn’t quite have the term for it. Your companions have already recovered, but for the two of you, the damage was more extensive. When we consulted with our seer, all they could say was that it was because you were already men out of time.”

“I think I know what that means,” Steve said, his forehead wrinkling with concern, “at least for me. Apparently, I’m supposed to get this treatment that turns me into some sort of super-soldier. I end up crashing a plane into the Arctic and getting frozen for seventy years.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “That could explain it. Another temporal displacement, albeit more organic, causing reverberations through the space/time continuum.” At least that’s what Bucky thought she said. “Does something similar happen to you, James Barnes?”

Bucky thought about what the girl had said, about how he’d been put into some sort of hibernation for what had to be decades. “I... think so. Ask Natalia, she might know.”

She nodded. “There is a possible treatment, but it will require cooperation from your companions. Are you familiar with the concept of transfusions? As in blood?”

“Sure,” Bucky replied. He’d donated a good half-dozen times at field hospitals before he’d gotten captured. Steve nodded as well; with a nurse for a mother, and his own health issues, he was familiar with quite a few medical procedures.

“Well, instead of blood, they must share part of their soul with you.”

That seemed indescribably intimate, and vaguely blasphemous. “You know we just met these guys, right?” Bucky protested. “Me ‘n Steve have been been friends since we were kids. Can we do this soul-share thing?”

She shook her head. “Neither of you have the strength to donate to one another. In fact, we must test all of you to see who is the best match. And of course, there is the matter of willingness. Now, you both must rest before you rejoin your companions.”

Bucky couldn’t argue; even their short conversation had left him exhausted. She took a pitcher from a shelf and poured two goblets of the same pale golden liquid she’d given him before. She handed one to each of them. “Drink this, and I will take you back to your room, Steve Rogers.” 

The next morning -- or at least Bucky assumed it was morning -- he finally felt well enough to do a few things for himself, including getting dressed. A loose tunic and drawstring trousers had been left on a shelf and they fit well enough. Just as he was slipping his feet into a pair of sandals, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in.” It was Steve, and he was joined by Wilson and Tony. They were dressed similarly to what he’d just put on; the burgundy of Tony’s shirt set off his olive skin and dark hair nicely.

“Hey, Barnes,” Tony said, “Thanks for having my back. Glad you’re okay.” He looked a little uncomfortable; Bucky hoped it was with their overall situation and not specifically because of him. Even though they’d been at odds with one another pretty much the entire time they’d known each other, Bucky still found himself somehow drawn to him.

“Any idea why our hosts wanted us gathered together here?” Wilson asked.

“Or why they gave us the guinea pig treatment?” Tony added, rubbing at the crook of his arm. “When I give blood, I expect at least some juice and a cookie in return.”

Bucky glanced at Steve, who had apparently put two and two together as well. It seemed Wilson and Tony were their best matches for the procedure; they hadn’t been told yet. Bucky hoped he and Steve weren’t going to be expected to do the explaining.

A distracted-looking older man came into the room. “Ah, here you are. I am Mimir and the queen has asked me to prepare you for the soul forge. I told her I wasn’t sure how well it would work on Midgardians, but she feels certain it is the only way to restore your health. As if illness weren’t you mortals’ defining trait.”

He put what looked like a pair of opera glasses up to his face, staring at each of them in turn, while referencing a scroll dangling from his other hand. “Yes - you two,” and he gestured to Steve and Wilson. “We will try your pairing first.”

“Our what?” Wilson said.

“Your companions,” Mimir replied in an exasperated tone as he nodded towards Steve and Bucky, “are suffering from soul sickness. You all experienced it to a certain extent, being torn away from your own timeline, but it seems they are particularly vulnerable. They will not survive the voyage back to their proper time and place without a transfusion of animus. The two of you are the best matches among your group.”

Stark snorted, “And here I thought I’d sold my soul long ago.”

“On the contrary, Tony Stark,” Mimir replied, “you bear a surfeit of animus; which is why you are being paired with James Barnes, as his physical illness has exacerbated his condition.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “And, uh, what exactly is involved in this draining of essence? A dark crystal, perhaps?” The joking tone in his voice belied the way his eyes flicked nervously around the room, Bucky noted.

“The soul forge is primarily a diagnostic device,” Mimir replied dryly. “Assuming all goes well, it will confirm your compatibility and initiate the linking. The transfusion is similar to osmosis, with the animus seeking balance between the two individuals.” Again, Bucky wasn’t sure he was following everything the man said, but Stark nodded, even if he didn’t seem exactly reassured.

“And then what happens?” Wilson asked.

“Your friends are restored to health and we send you home.”

“But what about the side effects for the donors?” Steve asked, jerking that stubborn chin of his at Wilson. Oh, that was familiar; Steve, always looking out for someone that wasn’t him. “What does it do to them, to share their soul? Or to us?”

“For you, as Midgardians, we are uncertain; the the soul forge has not been put to use on your kind before. We expect some, few, concomitant eventualities. A certain physical weakness, in both parties, for a short time. You’ll be more easily wearied at first --” he explained, since Steve looked like the guy just started speaking French. “-- but there may also be more intense mental endurance. As for other effects,” the man shrugged a little, “we will deal with them as they happen.”

“Uh-huh,” Wilson replied, looking thoughtful.

“But regardless of your heritage,” Mimir continued, “a soul bond is no small thing. We expect that you will sense yourself in the other from now on. Fortitude, resilience, strength of will and character. You will draw on each other for these things, for the entirety of your lives. Whatever physical difficulties you will suffer -- as do all mortals -- your soul will refuse to falter as long as the other remains alive.”

As Bucky tried to absorb the man’s explanation, he struggled with applying it to their situation. Even if Natalia’s tall tale about him was right, that he’d be put in cold storage for decades and therefore not age, how could they possibly build any kind of relationship, much less the one his traitorous heart longed for?

“Uh, you do realize that we’re not going back to the same times, right?” Tony broke in.

“Ah, yes, the temporal displacement may create some difficulties,” Mimir admitted. “While you are apart, you may feel somehow incomplete. This may interfere with your ability to connect to others; for what petty mortal friendship can equal such a thing as a soul bond?”

“Well, that explains almost all of my twenties and thirties,” Tony muttered, pressing his hand over his heart and shaking his head as if something in his life finally made sense.

“Based on what was happening when I got snatched,” Wilson said, “I’d say Steve and me were about to become friends. Guess that means we went through with this.” And Wilson was already smiling at Steve, like they’d known each other for _years_. “You can come down to the VA sometimes and make me look good to the cute receptionist we got.”

“Wouldn’t it be a kick in Dad’s teeth if I ended up being BFFs with Captain America’s right hand man?” Tony mused. “Almost wish the old man was still alive, just so I could rub his face in it.” There was a furrow in the middle of the man’s forehead; as if he were masking pain with a bad joke. Bucky ached to run his thumb over that mark and smooth it out. Soothe all his soulmate-to-be’s hurts.

“Whatever feelings you have now regarding your companions, they will be stronger,” Mimir continued, as if he’d been reading Bucky’s mind. “Your individual anima will blend, become inseparable. It is no light task we undertake here, but vital if we are to restore the reality you already know.”

“Well, I don’t think I wanna be responsible for there not bein’ a Captain America” Wilson said, as if it were a foregone conclusion. “We kinda need him. I’m in.” 


	9. Chapter 9

Tony’s mind was reeling. He’d just about gotten a handle on the whole time travel shenanigans deal -- the fact that the shrimpy, mouthy kid over there would become the man, the myth, the legend and reappear three quarters of a decade later to save the day. And that he himself would be fighting right beside Captain America, just like in his childhood fantasies. But that would come after the kidnapping, the cave, and having an electromagnet shoved into his chest. He’d cajoled Rhodey for all the details, despite his friend’s warning that maybe it was better not to know.

And now there was this ‘soul-sickness’ thing being thrown at them. The term set off Tony’s woo-alarm, but if he thought of it in terms of side-effects from being displaced in the space-time continuum, he could just about wrap his mind around it. He supposed it then made sense (for certain values of ‘sense’) that at least Rogers would be more susceptible, since he would be a soldier-sicle during the latter half of the twentieth century, time-travelling the long way around.

As for Sergeant James “Bucky” Barnes -- Tony had recognized Natalia’s reference to Hydra, thanks to Howard’s stories. According to Pops, the prison camp that Cap had rescued his childhood pal from was where Zola and Red Skull had started their reign of terror. Most likely, that was where the young soldier had been just before this adventure started. Tony had also listened carefully to the bits and pieces that Natalia had let spill about the Soldat. He blanched at the thought of what methods they would use to transform Bucky into what she had described: a weapon to be used and then put back away until it was needed again, via some sort of cryostasis.

A weapon, yes, but wielded by whom? Natalia was obviously Russian, and Hydra had been German; of course that meant nothing in the larger scheme of things, as evil could worm its way into any government . Considering the fact that the rest of them had become Avengers (or Avengers-adjacent) it wasn’t clear why Bucky had been taken as well.

“Wilson, you’re the furthest along in our timeline, right?” Tony asked carefully. “And you’ve got no idea who Sarge is supposed to be. That has to mean something. Natalia might have come out of the cold, but that doesn’t mean he did.”

He turned to Barnes. “Maybe you’d be better off sticking around here, sunshine. I mean, with the whole falling to your death in an alpine chasm and then somehow being resurrected by some mad scientists that even the Nazis thought had gone too far, well, that sounds like a supervillain origin story. It’d be a shame to have to face off against you, someday.”

Tony tried to convince himself he was saying this for Barnes’ benefit; but there was a selfish part of him speaking as well. Assuming this Mimir was telling the truth, the other person would know your deepest thoughts, memories and emotions. Tony didn’t even like talking about any of that, much less giving anyone full and complete access to his inner self. To discover all the mistakes he’d made, all the missed chances, all the regrets that he covered up with the Tony Stark everyone expected to see. He also wasn’t looking forward to the reverse; Sergeant Barnes had been in the shit for several months before getting captured, if Tony recalled correctly, and had certainly Seen Some Things.

Of course, the fact that Tony had feelings for the guy was just a cherry on top. Those were bound to spill over in the process and he didn’t think a ladykiller like Bucky Barnes would appreciate the attention. It was maybe a small thing in the whole scope of the problem, but it was a factor, nonetheless.

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know what t’ tell you.” Tony looked into those blue-grey eyes, eyes that were already haunted by what he’d experienced in that hellhole and the battles before; what fresh horrors were ahead? Bucky deserved an easier life, and someone to take care of him; Tony only wished he could be the one.

“It don’t gotta happen that way, Stark. I won’t let him fall.” Rogers spat out, fists clenched. Of course Captain Belligerent had to stick his two cents in. “He’s gonna come back with us, and you gotta help him.”

“Stevie, don’t,” Bucky told him. “I got a feelin’ if I go back, we ain’t gonna be able to change anything. It’s not worth fighting about. Maybe I should stay.”

“You’re always worth fightin’ about, Buck,” Rogers said. Wilson put a hand, comfortingly, on Rogers’ shoulder and he didn’t bother to shrug him off, accepting the empathy for what it was without arguing about it. A flash of jealousy crossed Bucky’s face; he’d clearly already accepted the stories that Wilson and Natalia had spun about their future, that he was going to lose his dearest friend, one way or another. But there was a ghost of a smile as well; as if he realized that while Captain America was going to end up in some nebulous, terrifying future alone, at least he’d have someone waiting for him on the other side.

“If you stay, James Barnes, the soul-sickness will continue to progress, and our remaining treatment options are questionable at best,” Mimir stated gravely. “But it is your choice.”

Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t, the poor bastard. But Tony could do something in the here and now, and maybe in the future as well. He reached out to rest a hand lightly on Bucky’s shoulder, only to make him practically jump out of his skin.

“Hey now, bright eyes,” Tony told him, catching the endearment too late. “Don’t you dare throw yourself in front of another tree for me. I’m not gonna let you die or get screwed over by fate. I don’t believe in collateral damage and I don’t do the sacrifice play. There’s always a work-around. We’ll be fine. We’ll get home, and I’ll figure this out. It’s what I do.”

“I ain’t scared of dyin’ here,” Bucky declared.

“No,” Tony said, “and I don’t doubt that. You’re scared of what we’re all scared of. _Living_.”

After a moment of silence, Mimir cleared his throat. “So, it has been decided? Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, you will go first?” Both men nodded. “Then come with me.” And just like that, Tony was left alone with Bucky.

“Well, now that we’ve believed six impossible things, how about we get some breakfast?” Tony really wasn’t all that hungry, but it would give them something to do before the mind-meld.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied. “Can’t even remember the last time I had a decent meal. The healer gave me some honey-colored liquid, that was about it.” Tony wasn’t surprised; while he’d regained a bit of color, Bucky still looked much too thin; when he stood, he wobbled a little.

“Nectar of the gods, or the local equivalent,” Tony said, putting out a steadying hand. “They gave us all a shot or two when we got here. Amazing stuff. Anyways, the food’s good, and there’s certainly plenty of it, but I do have some bad news, Sarge. They’ve never even heard of coffee.”

“Just as well I ain’t stickin’ around, then.” He grinned a little, and Tony couldn’t help but smile in reply. They walked slowly down the hall, as Bucky was limping pretty heavily. Their destination was what Tony thought of as the banquet room. There was a sideboard stacked with fruit and breads, and as they entered, a young girl came up and asked what they wished to eat.

“Is there any leftover roast beast from last night?” Tony asked. “My friend needs to get some meat on his bones.” She told them she’d bring something out right away, dipping her head before hurrying off, while he and Bucky sat across from one another at a long trestle table.

“Ya sure you wanna do this, Stark?”

“I’d rather be sitting down at a patisserie in Paris, to be honest,” Tony responded flippantly. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hide what he was thinking and feeling much longer, but old habits die hard.

“That’s not what I mean, champ.” While one corner of those gorgeous lips had quirked in amusement at Tony’s reply, Bucky’s tone was serious.

“Listen, if we’re gonna be instant BFFs, how about you start calling me Tony? And while this whole adventure isn’t how I intended to be spending my time, yeah, I want to do this.” He wasn’t quite lying; while Tony would have preferred for the whole situation never to have come up, he owed Bucky for quite probably saving his life.

The serving girl arrived with two plates, piled high with sliced meat and some sort of mashed root vegetable, as well as two large, steaming mugs.

“Thought you said they didn’t have java here.”

“Alas, my friend, this beverage is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee. However,” Tony stirred a large spoonful of honey into the liquid, “it does seem to have caffeine in it.” He took a large swig and made a face, eliciting a snort of laughter from his companion.

But Bucky only picked at his meal, despite having said he was hungry earlier. Maybe it was nerves and he was having misgivings as well. But before Tony could ask, Rhodey and Banner walked in and joined them.

“I still can’t believe that Asgard is real, and we’re here,” Banner said, with a delighted grin. Upon their arrival, they’d been brought before Odin to explain their part in the abduction and rescue of the young prince, who turned out to be none other than Loki. While he was much too young to be able to provide much in the way of useful information, the mere existence of the two orc-like creatures was enough to prove the Midgardians’ innocence.

They both told Bucky they were glad to see him out and around; he didn’t say a word about his medical adventures, other than to thank them for their well-wishes. All four of them chatted as they ate, talking a bit about what they had been up to. Heimdall had apparently taken a shine to Rhodey and shown him the armory, while the queen had taken Banner on a tour through her medicinal garden.

Just as they were finishing their meal, Mimir came looking for them. “Come along, gentlemen.” he said briskly, clapping both him and Bucky on their shoulders. No time to waste, so to speak.”

“What’s up, Tones?” Rhodey knew him too well; he must have picked up on Tony’s nerves.

“Trying to learn a little about Asgardian tech before they send us back home,” Tony replied, “Might be able to put together a few more patents out of this experience.“ Rhodey gave him a suspicious look, but didn’t question any further. Banner simply nodded in acknowledgement as Tony and Bucky took their leave.

Mimir escorted them down two levels, then through a long hallway. The room they ended up in was windowless, lit by braziers that were surprisingly smoke-free. They surrounded what at first glance looked like a tall four-poster bed. But the columns, which bowed out oddly, had glowing red streams of some sort of plasma flowing between them, floating and falling like curtains waving in the breeze.

“This is the soul forge,” Mimir explained. “After the initial synchronization, the animus transfer shouldn’t take long.” He touched a column, and one side of the platform cleared. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

“After you, Alphonse,” Tony said, making a sweeping gesture towards the high platform.

Bucky actually grinned, recognizing the old vaudeville routine. “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly. After you, Gaston.” He bowed grandly, but then flinched; the movement must have aggravated his wound. Tony climbed up and slid over to make room for his soon-to-be soulmate. Bucky struggled a little, so Tony reached out a hand to help him up.

Bucky’s palm was roughened and callussed, presumably by the work he’d been forced to do in the prison camp. “Ya got quite a grip there, champ,” he commented, “ not at all what I expected from a rich swell like you,” But there was a twinkle in his eye that turned his words into a tease, and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let Tony’s hand go.

“More money just means bigger toys,” Tony grinned. “Wish I could show you the ‘32 roadster I’ve been restoring. Had to tear the engine completely apart; I probably still have grease under my fingernails.”

“You’ll want to maintain physical contact throughout the transfer,” Mimir said briskly, restoring the plasma curtain. He touched the surface and geometric shapes like mandalas formed, sliding around as his hands moved in purposeful gestures. “Now, please lie back, and clear your minds.”

The latter was more easily said than done; Tony’s attention was torn between the workings of the soul forge -- which he was beginning to suspect was some sort of quantum field generator -- and the man at his side. Tony would try his damndest to not let his rampant attraction to Bucky leak over into whatever this so-called soul-sharing was going to involve.

Mimir was joined by Eir, who also started manipulating the plasma streams. The queen stood behind them both, observing their actions closely. A strange buzzing sensation traveled up Tony’s spine to the base of his skull before wrapping around to his temples. Bucky’s hand tightened on his; he must be feeling the same sensation.

A wave of unfamiliar pain and fear washed over Tony; he gasped in surprise. If this was what Bucky was currently coping with, he’d been hiding it frighteningly well. Tony in turn dug up every positive thought and memory he could: starting with working on the roadster he’d just mentioned. That segued into building Dum-E, and the sense of triumph he’d experienced when JARVIS first came online. Tony thought of watching the sunset from his Malibu home, of soaring over the Grand Canyon in the company jet, having convinced the pilot to fly just above the minimum altitude.

When he started recalling some of the shenanigans he and Rhodey had gotten up to during the MIT days, Tony got a flash of sitting in the bleachers at the ball game; the smell of roasted peanuts, cigars and cheap beer hanging heavy in the air. The Dodgers were up by three at the bottom of the eighth inning and all was well with the world. Then he was looking at his own father, Howard Stark in the prime of his youth, demonstrating his first attempt at a flying car in front of an awestruck crowd. He joined in the laughter as the car fell heavily back to the stage.

Bits and pieces of each of their lives began to fly thick and fast through their connection; Tony could no longer pick and choose what to share and could barely register what was coming his way. Images, sounds, scents and sensations flickered in and out as fast as strobe lights and as disorienting. The only constant was Bucky’s hand, strong and warm. That warmth was seeping into Tony’s core, filling a void he’d tried to plaster over with fast cars, expensive booze and one night stands.

A surge of longing, affection and need flared through the bond, a shining thread among the cacophony. It burned bright and Tony’s heart broke free from his control and sent a reply: _Yes. I am here. I feel it too. Be mine, and I will be yours_. That was all it took. Dropping his defenses, Tony opened his eyes to see his soulmate already reaching out to him. They embraced, and the rest of the world faded away.

***

“I’m not going to let them take you away from me, sweetheart.” Wrapping himself around Tony, Bucky’s tone was low and fierce. They had retreated to a secluded corner of the palace gardens in response to the confirmation of what Tony had already suspected: upon being returned to their proper place within the space-time continuum, the memories of their time in Asgard would be walled off and forgotten.

“I ain’t giving you up,” Bucky continued stubbornly, his face buried in the crook of Tony’s neck and shoulder. Their companions knew about the soul forge, thanks to Rogers and Wilson, but neither he nor Bucky had hinted at the true extent of their bonding to anyone else. It felt too private, too personal to speak of. Which meant they only had brief, stolen moments together and even those were quickly coming to an end.

We don’t have a choice, sunshine,” Tony replied, carding his fingers through his soulmate’s hair. “Sequential memory -- it’s all or nothing, like beads on a string.” Everything the Asgardians had said seemed to weigh against the string theory concept of branching timelines in favor of the precept of a single time stream. It was a shame he wouldn’t recall any of it; he could probably write a hell of a paper on the topic now.  It was obvious, in retrospect they couldn’t be allowed to know their own futures, as it would set off a cascade of paradoxes. What was going to happen had already happened, or would already happen; Tony wasn’t sure what verb tense applied; he’d always been better at math than grammar.

Regardless, Tony was determined to somehow remember his soulmate. He would find Bucky, move heaven and hell to free him from durance vile. He didn’t care what it would take, what he’d have to give up in return, if only they could find each other and be together once again.

***

The agony in his chest woke Tony and left him gasping. As the strange man started explaining what had happened, where he was and what would be expected of him, Tony couldn’t help but feel he’d lost something. Something very important that had left as much of a hole in his chest as the shrapnel had. But for the life of him, he couldn’t recall what it was.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Sam collapsed under the tree and watched the distant figure of what had to be Captain America take a final lap. The tree was nice, the bark smooth. The grass was cool under his butt and the tree hadn’t had any particular amount of bugs crawling on it when he flopped down.

It was nice. The morning was just starting to brighten up, and Captain America had been lapping him around the Reflecting Pool. It was going to make a great story to tell later, even if nobody was going to believe him. It was hard for Sam not to watch the man; there was something _familiar_ about him.

_Of course he’s familiar, you jackass_ , Sam told himself. _He’s Captain America. One of the most famous men in the world._

Cap dropped to a walk and strode over to Sam’s tree. “Need a medic?”

Sam wondered if it would be rude to pull out his phone and snap a picture. No way was anyone going to believe Cap had actually stopped to talk to him. He coughed out a laugh, still breathing hard. Cap wasn’t even sweating, and how was that even fair? “I need a new set of lungs. Dude, you just ran like thirteen miles in thirty minutes.”

Cap just smiled. It wasn’t a grin, barely even showing teeth. “I guess I got a late start.”

Asshole. “Oh, really? You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take another lap,” Sam hesitated for a moment, making a show of blinking. “Did you just take it? I assumed you just took it.”

Cap’s smile didn’t even flicker. That was downright disturbing is what that was. The man just looked sad. Although it wasn’t like Sam wasn’t familiar with that sort of fronting.

“What unit you with?”

“Fifty-eighth, Pararescue. But now I'm working down at the VA. Sam Wilson.” Sam wondered if he was just a check point on Captain America’s therapy list: Make a new friend. Hell, it wasn’t like Sam hadn’t given out that assignment to a few of his mentees as well.

“Steve Rogers,” Cap said, offering him a hand up.

“Yeah, you know I kinda--” Sam grabbed Cap’s hand, and then--

“Oh, oh, oh,” Sam stuttered, as the touch of Steve’s hand cleared a fog away from his brain that he hadn’t even known was there. The feel of Steve’s skin under his was like the answer to every question he’d ever had. “Steve!”

“Sammie!”

And Sam found himself pulled into a rough hug, thumped on the back several times. Tears prickled at his eyelids and Sam tucked his face against Steve’s neck.

“Oh, my god,” Sam said. “You’re real. You’re… that really happened? I… I dreamed about it, sometimes.”

“I’m here,” Steve said. “Finally.” He shoved Sam away to look at him, then hugged him again. Pain that Sam hadn’t even realized he was in went away.

“Oh, oh, my god,” Sam said again. “Your friend.”

“Bucky,” Steve breathed. “Oh, my god, Bucky. _He’s alive_. Somehow. He’s alive. Oh, Christ, Sam, we gotta find him, we gotta--”

“Stark,” Sam interjected. With the kind of resources the billionaire genius had at his disposal, surely he’d be able to track down his soulmate. Assuming that Steve could get his fellow Avenger to believe him. And that Steve could manage to keep his mouth shut on some issues -- the Asgardians had been very clear on the dangers too much portents could result in. Sam only hoped that Steve knew what he was doing.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll talk to him, right away,” Steve said. There was a wobble to Steve’s mouth that Sam recognized. Steve was lying. He wasn’t going to tell Tony, not until he absolutely had to. Maybe, Battle of New York aside, the two of them continued to not hit it off particularly well. Maybe Sam could help with that, smooth the way. He knew a lot about breaking bad news to hot-headed people.

A dark car pulled up to the curb, “Hey boys, can you give me directions to the Smithsonian? I’m looking for a fossil.”

“Ha, ha,” Steve said, pulling away from Sam for a moment, then, “Hey, Nat. I want you to meet my friend, Sam Wilson.”

Nat made a face, then grinned. “Didn’t know you had friends, Rogers.”

“A few,” Steve said.

“Nice to meet you,” Nat said. “We’ll get together later, play cards or something. Gotta go, Cap. Duty calls.”

“Do not play cards with Nat,” Steve cautioned.

“Yeah, no, I think I figured that out a while ago.”

Nat frowned and Steve got in the car. Sam stood there for a few minutes, watching them leave. “Dammit,” he said. “Forgot to get my selfie. No one is gonna believe this shit.”

***

“Congratulations, Cap,” War Machine said, and it wasn’t James Rhodes in there, except that it was. Steve was so tired of the voices in his head, the tones of voice, the memories… two lives. They’d lived two lives, and so far, only he and Sam remembered it. “You’re a criminal.”

Bucky was flat on the ground, more than one gun turned in his direction and it was over, it was over and all Steve could feel was relief. Maybe. “I just… I need to talk to Tony, okay? Please?”

“Oh, you’re gonna talk to Tony, all right,” War Machine said. “He’s the only one who’s still on your side.”

Steve exchanged a glance with Bucky. All the fight had gone out of the man who’d once been his best friend. Who was once a Hydra spy and assassin. Who’d tried to kill him. And who might, somewhere in there, still remember who he’d once been. _Oh, pal, I’m so, so sorry about this. Making you go through all of it. Maybe we should have left you behind._

And that hurt, it hurt like fire, burning. He’d been so happy when he realized that Bucky had made it, that Steve and Sam had made it, that everyone he’d known from that very brief time in his life -- they were alive, they were his friends. Everything had changed.

Sort of.

Arrested. Yeah, like he’d never been arrested before. But Bucky was safe, he was safe, and maybe, maybe they could get to the bottom of all this.

Nat was distinctly unimpressed. “For the record, this is what making things worse looks like.”

“He's alive.” Which was better than the Germans had wanted to do for him; they were going to shoot Bucky. Prince T’challa had all but sworn vengeance against a man who might no longer have a will of his own.

***

Tony was glaring at Steve, while he talked on the phone. “No. Romania was not Accords-sanctioned. And, Colonel Rhodes is supervising cleanup. _Consequences_? You bet there'll be consequences. Obviously you can quote me on that 'cause I just said it. Anything else? Thank you, sir.”

“Consequences,” Steve said. It didn’t come out sounding like a question and he had to remind himself that Tony didn’t know, Tony didn’t understand, and that he was going to change that. Bucky was downstairs in a horrible little glass cell, but it would all be over soon.

“Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted. Had to give him something,” Tony said. He looked exhausted, like he’d had a bad day on no sleep. Tony looked like that a lot, these days.

“Well, I want to give you something,” Steve said. “If you’ll let me.”

“Tell me it’s a goddamn signature on the paperwork, Steve and I could kiss you.”

“I want you to come with me and talk with Bucky,” Steve said, and then he made a face because he really, really did not want to sign those damn Accords. They were terrifying, they were putting a new label on slavery. They were wrong and the people pushing for them were wrong, and Tony was trying so damn hard to compromise, but Steve… well, Steve had never known the meaning of that word, and he wasn’t going to sign anything that made him feel so _unsafe_. “Come with me, talk to him. And then I’ll sign whatever you want.” That might have been a fair trade, Steve’s freedom for Bucky’s life. It was a trade he’d take, in a heartbeat. And… it was possible, once Tony knew the truth, that he’d understand, and that he wouldn’t make Steve hold up his end of the bargain.

“Why?” Tony runckled his nose up suspiciously. “You’ve been fighting me -- fighting the whole damn world -- about this, and _now_ you want to compromise? Is your boyfriend that important to you?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Steve said, and didn’t bother to add, _but I think he might be yours_ , because Tony wouldn’t understand that. Not yet. “Listen to me, Tony. Please. You’d do it for Rhodes, wouldn’t you? If someone had tortured him for years, until he didn’t know himself. You’d sacrifice for him, wouldn’t you? Can’t you see, Bucky didn’t… he wasn’t responsible for those things. The UN won’t understand, they won’t listen. They just want a scapegoat.”

“Yeah, they’re not the only ones,” Tony snapped. “Okay, okay, fine, yeah, I’ll play along, but Rogers, you better be dealing straight with me, or I’m gonna let the Rossholes throw the damn book at you. You’re not America’s golden boy anymore.”

“Never was,” Steve said. “All I ever was is a kid from Brooklyn who wanted to do the right thing.” He glanced at Nat. “It’s hard to tell what that is, anymore.”

Tony shook his head. “You act like it was ever that simple,” he said. “Stop being a child. Politics has always been complicated if what you want is peace. War is easy; he with the biggest stick wins, just like Dad always said. We’re trying to make peace, Steve. That means listening to a lot of viewpoints that aren’t yours.”

It was all Steve could do not to grab Tony’s hand and drag him downstairs. He settled for walking just behind Tony’s shoulder, as if he could push the man to walk faster.

Bucky was in a cage.

A little glass thing, like a fishtank from hell. “Can we…”

“Yeah, no,” Tony said. Except he walked to the little cage like he was being pulled by a magnet and his hand splayed out over the glass. Bucky, who hadn’t said a word since they’d all been captured, looked up. His eyes widened, then his mouth dropped open and he was reaching, struggling against the thick metal restraints that held him down, reaching, like he knew, somehow. “Okay, change of plans, open this up.”

“Sir, we--”

“Look, I am six damn inches away from getting Cap’s signature on the Accords and fixing all of this, so you just do what I say, and do it now, and I’ll take responsibility for it if it goes to shit.” Tony scoffed and said, aside, to Steve, “If he kills me, you get to take responsibility for it.”

“He’s not going to kill you,” Steve promised.

The guard punched in a code and the glass door opened silently on its hinges. “So, uh, Barnes, I’m Tony Stark--”

“I know who you are,” Bucky said. His fingers were opening and closing, and the metal cuffs that held him down were shuddering to contain him. “I know. I’ve always known.”

“Well, that’s not the least bit creepy,” Tony said. Which didn’t seem to stop him from reaching for Bucky’s hand.

Steve took a deep breath.

“What the hell is this?” someone demanded. “This is my patient, I’m supposed to be evaluating him, he’s not supposed to be coached--”

“Son, just don’t,” Steve said, and he put a hand in the middle of the man’s chest and pushed him back, gently. “This needs to happen, and I’m not letting you get in the way.”

The man leaned around Steve’s arm and said something in quick, fluid, foreign words that Steve didn’t recognize.

Bucky… did. He jolted, like someone had just run a million volts through him. “No,” he said. “No, what is this?” He was shaking, and the man next to Steve kept talking, and Steve didn’t know what the hell was going on, but Bucky was panicking, he was struggling to escape and--

Tony whirled, hand going to his watch. There was a brief, sound that Steve recognized as the Iron Man armor powering up. Bucky was screaming, his muscles bunching as he fought the restraints.

The blast of a repulsor filled the air. The man flew backward and hit the wall with a dull thud. Alarms went off, everyone was scrambling, but Tony ignored them. He reached out and touched Bucky’s cheek with his bare hand. “It’s okay, I’m here,” he said, soft. “Come on back to me, sunshine.”

For just an instant, as their skin touched, Steve thought he could see sparks. Bucky went dead still, eyes wide as saucers.

He wrenched the cuffs out of the chair; mangled them without even thinking, stronger with his soulmate at his side than he’d been in the midst of his panic. He reached for Tony, and they crashed together, arms going around the other. Bucky held on tight, his nose in Tony’s hair. Steve’s throat tightened, watching them together.

“Oh, god, Tony, Tony, I’m so sorry, Tony,” Bucky was saying, and then he stiffened again. Stared over Tony’s shoulder at that man, the one who’d… done something.

Steve kept forgetting about him, it wasn’t important, what was important was--

“He knows my control words, Tony,” Bucky said. “You can’t let him, I’ll hurt you, I’ll--”

There were guards everywhere, and they weren’t being particularly cautious as to who they were pointing their weapons at.

“Shut that man up,” Tony barked, pointing to the half-conscious man. He kept his arm around Bucky. “I’ve got this, I’ve got this. Arrest that man. Steve. Go sign the damn Accords, do it now!”

“Yeah,” Steve said, watching as Bucky’s face relaxed into a smile. For the first time in _years_ , Steve thought everything might just be okay. 


	11. Epilogue

“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”

Stark gave Dr. Stephen Strange a look. “Sleep, what the hell is that?”

“Well, you are getting married tomorrow,” Stephen said. He folded his hands on his desk. “Or are you finally going to tell me why the time stream is swimming all around you.” It was particularly thick; had started as a green aura mist, combined with the blue of the soul-binding. Different from Captain America and Falcon’s bond, but no less strong for all that.

Stark couldn’t seem to help a smile at that, helpless and happy. It was a good look for him. “I am, but only because I need your help.”

“One of these days, you could just drop by for tea,” Stephen suggested.

“I have invited you to movie night at least once a month for the last year,” Stark pointed out, “after all that shit with Thanos went down. Not my fault you can’t figure out time and space enough to call a cab.”

“What can I do for you, then?”

“Yeah, okay, seems like… I might have been going to do something stupid and I need your help to actually get it done.”

Stephen’s hand went to the Eye around his neck. “What, exactly, are we going to do?”

“Exactly?”

“Stark…”

“We’re going to go back in time and kidnap me, and Steve and Bucky and Clint and Nat, and… well, everyone except Thor -- but we do get to traumatize Loki, back when he was a kid.”

“And why, exactly, are we doing this?”

“Because I’m pretty sure that we -- that you and I -- started all of this, to stop some terrible future,” Stark said. “We thought, at first, talking it out, that it might have been a bad guy of the week kinda deal, take us all out of our timeline before we became Avengers, and kill us, so we couldn’t. But that isn’t what’s happening. And… well, Wanda says the soul bonds are getting fragile. Which means Bucky might die… he needs my strength, to keep going. Steve, too. He needs his Sam. We depend on our soul mates. And if Bucky dies--” Stark didn’t have to continue that thought; everyone had seen during the Infinity War, exactly what Barnes and Stark meant to each other.

“Why are the bonds weakening?” Stephen asked, except he saw where this was going.

“We need to close the loop. We -- you and I -- haven’t gone yet,” Stark said. “We have to go back, do the things that we did, so that they will have been done. Man, time travel verbs are the _worst_.”

“And how do you know it was us?”

Stark reached into his vest pocket and pulled out an old, old photograph; Stephen when he was younger, just finishing his residency, with an arm around Christine. He’d lost that photo, years ago, somewhere in the trek around the world that had led him to the Ancient One. “I think you left this with me, a few days ago,” Tony said. “I woke up with it on my bedside table. Had to think about it, but this is the only conclusion that makes sense.”

Stephen laughed, his little half-chuckle. “You always do hate it when things don’t make sense.”

On the back, there’d always been the date, in Stephen’s hand, neat and crisp, as his handwriting had been once and would never be again. Under it was Christine’s scrawled _I love you. I will always love you._

Underneath that, in fresh pen, was Stephen’s own writing again, scratchy and shaky as it had become since his injury.

 _Stop arguing and go_.

“Guess we have an adventure to plan,” Stephen said.

“And we have to be back by morning,” Stark said. “I am getting married, after all.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta Da!
> 
> That's it... altho I (tisfan) may write a little smut scene to add as an aside for this fic... I've got about half of it planned, but I'm also running like 8 projects right now...
> 
> anyway, we hope very much that you enjoyed it. It was an interesting challenge, for Poliz and I to work together. We have vastly different writing styles and techniques...


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